North Carolina families adjust to school closures due to falling enrollment, budget woes

Families across North Carolina are adjusting to a new normal – multiple school closures as districts change course based on rising expenses, falling enrollment and slower birth rates.

Almost 60 schools have closed statewide since 2022, WRAL News reported after using data from the Department of Public Instruction.

“The teachers know [the students] and see them grow up through the years. I definitely don’t want my child to have to go to multiple schools,” Amanda Taylor told the news outlet. “Maybe this year it’s Wilton (Elementary School), then they get transferred in next year, it’s another one.”

Wilton is closing at the end of this school year, which will save Granville County Public Schools almost $600,000 annually, according to the district superintendent.

“A school, oftentimes, is the anchor of a community, and generations pass through those doors,” Superintendent Stan Winborne said. “Unfortunately, the business side of things often is what really is driving the decisions. Budgets are extremely tight in public education, and we need to make every dollar count.”

Deferred maintenance helping drive ‘need to consider school closures’

Another district, Cumberland County Schools, is closing two elementary schools – J.W. Coon and Manchester – as the year ends.

“[An] independent analysis identified more than $800 million in facility needs across the district, including aging buildings, major system failures, and significant deferred maintenance,” a spokesperson explained to WRAL. “This, combined with declining student enrollment, is driving the need to consider school closures.”

Benefits of school closures include “reduced utility and maintenance costs, more efficient staffing and operations,” according to the article.

Falling school attendance also means less state and federal funding for districts. In one example, Granville County now sees about 5,860 students daily, compared to 9,000 in the early 2000s.

“You still have to have the same number of clerical staff, administrators, support staff and so on to run the school, but you have many fewer students, so it makes it much more expensive for the school district,” Winborne concluded.

Meanwhile, the student population is projected to keep dropping even though the U.S. Census Bureau marks North Carolina as one of the fastest-growing states nationwide.

“Almost all of that growth has been from ‘in’ migration, not from natural change (more births than deaths),” said Nathan Dollar, director of Carolina Demography at UNC’s Carolina Population Center. “Births are declining, and you have ‘out migration,’ and so that can cause hyper aging, and a decline in [average daily membership].”

As previously reported by The Lion, almost half of North Carolina residents disagree with the idea of raising taxes to support public education in its current condition.

“The reservoir of good will and trust the public schools enjoyed is eroding,” said Robert Luebke, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Center for Effective Education. “The growing popularity of charter schools and the Opportunity Scholarship Programs points to that.”