North Carolina districts grapple with declining enrollment, discuss school closures

Districts across North Carolina – even those in affluent areas such as Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools – are facing increased pressure to cut costs amid falling student numbers.

“Due to a combination of lower birth rates, higher housing costs, and more families sending their children to private and charter schools, enrollment is on the decline,” writes Carli Brosseau for The Assembly.

“State funding to the district, awarded primarily on a per-pupil basis, is falling as a result. Enrollment is down 350 students this school year alone, which will translate to about $2.6 million less in state funding next year.”

Unless the district implements school closures soon, it will need to downsize existing staff positions, according to the article.

“Meanwhile, the cost of maintaining multiple half-century-old buildings is mounting. Without quickly moving to close two elementary schools, somewhere between 50 and 80 employees will have to be laid off, Superintendent Rodney Trice had told the board.”

‘Nothing inherently wrong with being a 9,000-student district’

Other districts have either closed schools or are considering closures in response to declining enrollment, The Assembly notes.

“At least seven other North Carolina districts voted to close a school in the past year; closures or mergers are under discussion in at least four others, from Beaufort County on the coastal plain to Gaston County in the Charlotte suburbs.”

Trice has led a series of community meetings to help prepare the public for upcoming changes, including “a battery of graphs and charts” to help explain demographic trends, Brosseau wrote.

“While Orange County’s population has been growing, most of the growth has been among people 65 and older, Trice pointed out. The youngest group, under age 4, actually shrank from 2010 to 2020. The most recent kindergarten cohort was 28% smaller than a decade ago.”

However, Trice emphasized the importance of working together to create a “new vision” for the district, according to Brosseau.

“It’s not a crisis if we work together to pivot to become a smaller district, perhaps a 9,000-student district,” Trice concluded. “And there’s nothing inherently wrong with being a 9,000-student district—unless you’re funding yourself as a 12,000-student district.”

North Carolina has also made recent headlines for its growth in homeschool families, clocking in at No. 4 nationwide behind Alaska, Delaware and Vermont.

“We usually have an uptick when there’s been a school shooting,” said Jessica Frierson, media manager for North Carolinians for Home Education. “Bullying is a very big issue, and we have a lot of parents that say, ‘No. My kid is not going back. That’s it.’”