More than 37,000 students have left Oregon’s public schools since the COVID-19 pandemic – reversing a years-long trend and raising questions about enrollment tracking, according to recent reports.
“While declining birth rates in the state were already affecting school enrollment trends, the sharp drop in students raises questions about where once-enrolled students have gone, especially without statewide enrollment tracking for students in other settings, like homeschool or private school,” OPB wrote in a Nov. 13 article.
“Most of the states with the largest numbers of such children are in the West, but Oregon had the highest percentage.”
Some of the challenges for officials trying to explain the enrollment shortfall involve inconsistent – or in the case of homeschooling, nonexistent – tracking data.
“In Oregon, families who choose to homeschool their children report that to their local education service district,” OPB explains. “But Oregon does not collect data on students in private schools or homeschooling from the state’s 19 ESDs.”
