Massachusetts district sees ‘steepest single-year decline’ in enrollment since 2010

Mirroring a nationwide trend, Nantucket Public Schools (NPS) in Massachusetts is struggling with decreased enrollment its superintendent suggests is due in part from students leaving for private schools or homeschools.

The district had noted falling attendance for the 2025-26 academic year since September, but another eight students withdrew this month, “dropping enrollment to its lowest level since 2017,” the Nantucket Current reported.

“This is the steepest single-year decline in enrollment, both by raw numbers and percentage, that NPS has seen since the beginning of the district’s enrollment explosion in 2010. … October enrollment data is particularly important, as this is the data that will be sent to the state and largely used for official purposes this year.” 

Superintendent Elizabeth Hallett suggested many of the later withdrawals could stem from students’ being incorrectly listed as enrolled in the district when they were planning to attend private schools. 

“Sometimes that’s not recorded in our very first enrollment,” she said, of students going to private schools. 

Hallett also drew attention to the increase of homeschooled students on the island, which “hit a new high at 14 this year,” the news outlet noted. 

“I think so much of it also has to do with the pretty well-developed homeschooling curriculum materials that happened during and after the (COVID-19) pandemic,” she said, “so we’re seeing now that people are making decisions to homeschool based on the fact that there is so much more out there.” 

Final numbers indicate the district has enrolled 1,662 students – down from 1,731 last September and 1,724 last June, according to the report. 

Below-average testing scores 

The district also released its Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test results, which improved this year but “are still largely below state averages,” the Nantucket Current concluded. 

“Across the district, only 28 percent of students from grades three to eight met or exceeded expectations in English Language Arts (ELA), 25 percent did so in math, and 39 percent did so in science,” wrote JohnCarl McGrady. “All of those numbers are considerably lower than the state figures of 42 percent, 41 percent, and 42 percent, respectively.” 

However, Hallett noted the previous year’s performance had been worse – with 24% of students meeting or exceeding ELA standards, 23% in math and 31% in science. 

“We are actually quite pleased with our strong progress,” she said. 

Likewise, McGrady noted the district had received better results from the standardized Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, which showed scores “mostly above the median in math and only slightly below it in reading.” 

“It’s hard to know how much to read into the district’s weak MCAS scores, especially since the state has reduced the importance of the test by no longer requiring a passing grade for graduation,” he wrote.