Enrollment Declines and Financial Chaos

Marguerite Roza, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at UW, and a member of the CACIEE, wrote an interesting piece recently for Education Week called Must Enrollment Declines Spell Financial Chaos for Districts?

She writes, "The crux of the problem is that while some revenue streams are dependent on student counts, expenditures are not...The idea proposed here is that a much larger share of district resources be allocated on the basis of enrollments, not only to schools, but also to departments, services, operations, administration, or other district functions."

The following excerpt seems quite relevant for Seattle schools:

"Budgeting per pupil might seem harsh when enrollment is declining, since schools can end up with fewer dollars than they had the previous year. But this approach, when coupled with a choice system, also puts decisions about how to handle declining revenues and whether or not to close or merge schools in the hands of the parents and the schools, not district staff members who have little stake in the matter. For schools, declining resources signal an early wake-up call to redesign (possibly as an intentional small school), or, where viable, recruit more students. Schools get closed when parents begin to opt out for other schools with higher enrollments. "