Tough decisions are being made in public school districts throughout Rhode Island, and more appear on the horizon for others amid shrinking enrollment counts throughout the state, as an important source of compensatory funding is set to dry up at the end of fiscal 2025.
The state’s public school districts were hit with a massive drop in enrollment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 10,000 fewer students enrolled in October 2023 compared with the same time in 2019, amounting to a 7.9% decrease of kids
in district schools, according to a report called “Empty Seats” released last year by the nonpartisan Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.
The reasons are varied and complex, and the drop in enrollment slammed some communities much harder than others, with five of the state’s 36 school districts seeing a more than 15% decrease in students. For some communities, it’s a result of mostly demographic changes as young families have fewer children or move elsewhere due to the high cost of housing, while in other places it’s more about the growing appeal of private schools, charter schools, vocational-technical schools, homeschooling and even dropping out of school. The four-year dropout rate in Rhode Island hit a mark of 9.7% in 2021-2022, the highest in over a decade, according to RIPEC.
“You have two stories: a loss of kids during COVID, and you also have a decline in the last few years that’s much more predictable, for what you would assume for demographic trends,” said Justine Oliva, manager of research for RIPEC. “That kids lost during that first year would come back was the original perception. But we haven’t seen a rebound.”
Lawmakers acted to “hold districts harmless” from the impact of the enrollment decline on state aid. However, those hold-harmless funds are now being phased out, with districts getting just 40% of the compensation for enrollment loss in fiscal 2024 and 25% for the current fiscal year, ending on June 30, 2025.
“Districts only now are truly feeling the full effect of that enrollment loss, in terms of what it means for their finances,” Oliva said. “We are in a new fiscal reality in the upcoming school year. That might mean closing classrooms or schools or consolidating. Districts are going to have to adjust and make changes.”
South Kingstown saw a decline more than any other Rhode Island school district, with an 18.5% decrease in enrollment between October 2019 and October 2023, from 2,882 to 2,348, according to statistics calculated by RIPEC based on R.I. Department of Education data.
South Kingstown Superintendent Michael Podraza describes a combination of factors behind the district’s loss, including multiple charter schools operating in the district, homeschooling and private schools. But there’s also real estate. Podraza says high costs and low inventory prevent mobility and empty summer homes lead to empty seats at school.
“We have a large part of the town that is coastal, where some of the homes serve as secondary, rather than primary, dwellings, which also has the potential to impact enrollment,” Podraza said in an email.
Podraza, who oversees a $68.6 million budget, says the district has been forced to respond by enacting school reconfigurations, closures and consolidations, along with layoffs. The district laid off 17 employees heading into fiscal 2025, Podraza says.
The district is also improving its career and technical education programs, providing options to students who might otherwise be lured away to vocational schools or directly into the workforce. Podraza said he’s also “very encouraged” voters recently approved a $150 million bond to build a new high school.
“I am an optimist when it comes to my hopes for South Kingstown’s enrollment,” Podraza said. “I am also a realist and recognize there are many factors outside of the schools’ locus of control that can have a dramatic impact on our enrollment.”
Laurie Dias-Mitchell, Little Compton’s superintendent, saw her student enrollment drop by just 26 students from October 2019 through 2023, but it accounted for an 11% loss in the one-school district serving kindergarten through eighth grade. While Dias-Mitchell says she is unworried about the future of the district, she is hoping Little Compton leaders will do more to make housing affordable.
“The sky-high cost of housing in Little Compton and the declining birth rate have significantly impacted the number of year-round families with children, which impacts school enrollment,” Dias-Mitchell said.
Rhode Island educators have long been mindful of birth rates. In 2017, RIDE released a projection that the state’s public school population would shrink by 5,511 students from 2016 through 2027.
In Newport, where enrollment is down 15.7%, Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain says rising housing costs are the biggest factor. Jermain says most of her teachers live outside of Newport because there is little affordable housing.
Woonsocket Superintendent Patrick McGee is dealing with a decline in enrollment that’s more in line with the state average of 7.9%, losing 453 students from October 2019 through 2023, amounting to a drop of 7.5%.
Still, McGee says his district cut more than 30 positions heading into this school year. McGee, adding that he was down another 70 students compared with last school year, says the district also recently consolidated classes. McGee says his school district is losing a growing number of students to charter schools and out-of-district career and technical education programs.
McGee, who oversees a $100 million budget, says he is hoping the General Assembly will continue the hold-harmless funding into next year.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said McGee, explaining the district’s heavy reliance on state funding. “We have to make tough decisions.”
When it comes to planning ahead, McGee says school districts have access to 10-year projections and population reports issued by the New England School Development Council, but the information is not always reliable.
“Here, we have so much movement in and out of our district,” McGee said. “It makes those NESDEC numbers not completely accurate. That’s a little challenging.”
Oliva, the RIPEC researcher, says that if decreased enrollment was only an issue of demographics, it wouldn’t be such a problem. But 1,500 children left Rhode Island public schools for homeschooling at the beginning of the pandemic, and many others joined private schools, charter schools and out-of-district vocational-technical schools. That shows there’s room for improvement, Oliva says.
“It’s not only demographics. If it is, the change doesn’t mean anything of consequence,” Oliva said. “The fact that some families opted out and continue to opt out, and some rely on private schools for a better education, means the state needs to pursue more broad education reform. We think it’s important to point out that some families are telling us that some schools aren’t meeting their needs.”
