Enrollment dip takes bite of Clarkston budget

This story has been updated from its original version to update incorrect information.

The Clarkston School District has yet to reach enrollment numbers as high as before the COVID-19 pandemic, with a loss of 162 students since 2019.

The drop in enrollment also means a decrease in the amount of funding the district will receive.

Superintendent Thaynan Knowlton said the amount of money allocated for each student is adjusted yearly but usually is about $8,000 to $10,000. The drop of 162 students since 2019 means a loss of more than $1 million in funding for the district.

The school district has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels of enrollment. The number of students in the district at the beginning of this school year was 2,405 compared to 2,567 at the start of the 2019-20 school year. For the 2020-21 school year, the district had 2,458 students, a decrease of 109 from 2019-20.

On the other side of the river in Lewiston, the school district has seen an increase in enrollment.

The Lewiston School District had 4,715 students before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the 2019-20 school year. That number dropped to 4,607 students at the start of the 2020-21 school year. However, the district rebounded with 4,804 students this year.

Kim Eimers, director of student services for the Lewiston School District, said the increase is not because of Clarkston students crossing the river to attend school. She said only one Lewiston student this year reported living outside of Idaho.

It’s possible families could be moving from Clarkston to Lewiston, but Eimers said there was no method for determining if students left Clarkston to come to Lewiston.

“We’ve certainly had students who have moved to the school district from across the river,” she said.

Although residents of the two districts often move between districts, Eimers said they still have to prove residency to attend the Lewiston School District or pay the out-of-state tuition set by the state department of education.

The increase of students will also benefit the Lewiston School District’s funding, through Idaho has an attendance-based funding formula, not enrollment like in Washington. It’s a formula is based on attendance from the first day of school through the first Friday in November, then the best 28 weeks of attendance. Attendance is counted as zero, half-day or full-day with four hours or more counting as a full day. Other factors include the grade level and the type of school.

While the numbers show some changing trends between Lewiston and Clarkston, the cause is still unknown — but one culprit is COVID-19.

“COVID is how we explain the last two years starting in 2020,” Knowlton said. Before that, numbers would go up and down but were relatively stable.

The decrease follows trends across the state of Washington, with the Seattle Times reporting that between the fall of 2019 and fall of 2021, school districts across the state saw enrollment decline by 3.5 percent. The report also shows the state’s homeschool population almost doubled.

Knowlton said he has seen an increase in students enrolled in the district’s homeschool option called Clarkston Home Alliance. According to the district’s enrollment numbers, 67 students were in the program in September of this year and that number jumped to 86 for December.

The Clarkston Home Alliance is a parent partnership program that allows students to be homeschooled, but it is supported by a classroom teacher. The district helps parents find the appropriate curriculum and provides additional hands-on learning that students would receive in a public school classroom that parents might not have the resources for.

The program is a designated Alternative Learning Experience, so it receives state funding. Students enrolled in the program are also included in the district’s total enrollment numbers that are used for funding for the rest of the district. Knowlton said the district began the approval process for the program two years ago when it looked like learning was going to be more remote.

“It’s good for us to have an alternative option for parents not comfortable being in schools,” he said.

The state of Washington is also following the national trend as well, with the National Bureau of Economic Research reporting a drop of about 1.1 million K-12 students, a 2 percent decline, for public school enrollment in the 2020-21 school year. The drop was most prominent in elementary and kindergarten grades. The researchers found a correlation between declines at the district level and the type of instruction offered, suggesting that districts that had remote-only instruction suffered from decreased enrollment in younger students.

The Clarkston School District returned to full-time, in-person learning April 12 after offering remote and hybrid learning since March 2020. The type of instruction and restrictions for in-person learning were put in place by state officials as well as local health officials, Knowlton said.

“We have to live by what the state has said,” he said. “Schools have to abide by those rules. We’re just going to obey the law and keep moving forward.”

The restrictions, like the mask mandates, don’t always affect the school district negatively. Some parents feel safer because students are wearing masks and some parents take their children out of school because of the mask issue.

“It goes both ways,” Knowlton said. “Some are frustrated, some are not, some are ambivalent, some are happy those protections are in place.”

When a student leaves the district, they often don’t inform school officials, so Knowlton said there’s no way of knowing where they are going or why they left. There is also no clear method for retaining students in the district.

“I think the best thing we can do is control the things we can control, and what we can control is the quality of education supporting kids and supporting parents,” Knowlton said. “We’re all hoping this comes to an end soon. We just really want to get back to normal school life.”

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.

More information on Clarkston School District enrollment and breakdown by year, month and school can be found at bit.ly/3GtQSfE.