Earlier this week, Mesa Public Schools announced it would be eliminating some jobs next school year due to a decline in enrollment.
It’s a trend that one expert says will likely cause more schools to make changes.
Over the past several months, many Arizona school districts have considered or approved school closures due to declines in enrollment. The Roosevelt Elementary School District announced the closure of five schools in December and the Cave Creek Unified School District is now considering closing two of its own.
Glenn Farley is with Arizona’s Common Sense Institute. In a presentation this week, he explained that while the total population of the state is growing, the school aged population is declining.
“You have declining birth rates but you have increasing life expectancy [and] you have domestic and international migration. Those are sort of masking or hiding or concealing the declining birth rates and the overall population numbers," Farley said.
He says classroom sizes are expected to keep shrinking and more schools are likely to see closures in the future.
“Every kindergarten class for the past decade has been smaller than the one before, not just the first, second, third grade but 1-12. Every class is likely to be smaller next year than it was this year," Farley said.
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A bill that would expand scholarship opportunities for community college students who want to become teachers advanced at the state Senate this week.
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The president of Buckeye’s Liberty Elementary School District governing board resigned Friday. The announcement came just days after parents in the district started a petition to recall him and the board's vice president.
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On a recent Tuesday morning, a group of elementary school kids gathered in a gymnasium for a theatrical interpretation of one of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
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Parents, students and teachers in the Buckeye district spoke out at this week’s governing board meeting, expressing their concerns about Board President Bryan Parks and Vice President Kris Kenyon.
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When the Trump administration issued an order freezing federal funding last week, many organizations who rely on that funding, including the Arizona Head Start Association, were stunned.