The Ups, and Mostly Downs, of School District Enrollment Across Oakland County
(Kurt Metzger, May 6, 2024)
Oakland County, MI- Enrollment in Michigan’s K-12 public school system continued its downward trend last fall, while enrollment increased in private schools and taxpayer-funded charter schools. Traditional K-12 school districts have lost more than 70,600 students since the coronavirus pandemic upended the 2019-20 school year, while charter schools have gained more than 4,800 students over the ensuing four years
To understand how Oakland County has fared, I pulled data for the 2019-20, 2022-23, and 2023-24 school years and here is what I found.
Oakland County has 28 traditional K-12 districts. Of those 28, twenty-five (25) have experienced enrollment losses. As can be seen in the accompanying chart, the largest losers were Walled Lake, Oak Park, Waterford and Huron Valley. The three that increased enrollment were not located near each other – Novi, Ferndale and Avondale.
While a decrease in the county’s school-age population (down 5,700 between 2019 and 2022/down 27,400 between 2010 and 2022) is a major factor in losses, pandemic choices around homeschooling and transfers to charters, private and parochial schools have also played a major role.
But what about the districts that bucked the general trend? Novi’s gain of 5 students is easily attributable to population growth along the I-96 corridor. The Avondale district’s growth appears to be primarily attributable to an increase in Schools of Choice students, particularly from the Pontiac and Rochester districts. The components of the Ferndale district’s enrollment growth appear to be the most sustainable, as the number of schools of choice students decreased while the number of in-district students attending experienced a healthy increase.
Avondale credits their success on a number of programs, including tuition-paid preschool, partnerships with Oakland Community College and Rochester University, a robust Career and Technical Education program, and the diversity of staff. According to a memo sent by Avondale, students and staff speak 41 different languages, and it’s important to have teachers who can engage in students from a variety of backgrounds. They also offer a program for gifted students which has grown from 30 students to 400. Superintendent Dr. James Schwartz stated “It’s a public magnet school, which is rare in our area.”
When asked about Ferndale Schools’ increased enrollment, Superintendent Camille Hibbler told Oakland County Times “As we navigate the post-pandemic landscape, we’re encouraged by the steady increase in student enrollment in Ferndale. It reflects a growing confidence in our schools and underscores our community’s commitment to education. We remain dedicated to providing a safe, supportive, and enriching environment for all students as we embrace this positive trend and continue to adapt to evolving needs.”
While the bright spots may be good for those three districts, the vast majority continue to loose students – and loose funding.
I wanted to take a slightly longer term look at enrollment as a way of understanding the issues that our districts are facing as they develop budgets, determine staffing, examine building consolidation and closings, etc.
I decided to go back a decade to the 2013-14 school year and compare enrollments to those of 2023-24.
In this scenario, only 4 districts have managed to grow – South Lyon (up 854), Oxford (439), Avondale (316) and Novi (297). Out of the 24 districts that have lost students, only Ferndale (down 44) and Royal Oak (down 85) managed to stay below a 3-digit loss.
Five districts have experienced a loss greater than 1,500 students – Waterford (-3,489), Walled Lake (-3,107), Southfield (-2,350), Huron Valley (-1,930) and Farmington (-1,719).
Pandemic funding brought a great deal of resources to our public schools, allowing for additional programming and staff hires. As this funding comes to an end, school districts will be faced with a number of budget-related choices. State per-pupil funding will drive these budgets once again and accurate enrollment forecasts will be more critical than ever before.
Visit the Data-Based Stories Archives on Oakland County Times for stories on voter turnout, population shifts, Dogs of Oakland County, and other statistics-related stories, thanks to Data Expert Kurt Metzger.
NOTE: The original version of this story stated that school districts that lost students were not located near each other. Upon further review, three of the districts are in western Oakland with one in SE Oakland. We removed the reference to distance all together.
