Changing demographics appear to be lowering Arizona public school enrollment

PHOENIX - Changing demographics are a big reason for declining enrollment in Arizona public schools, the state's superintendent of public instruction says.

Something like this can happen every 12 years or so, and in Tuesday night's meeting, the Roosevelt School District addressed declining birth rates. Since 2007, the number of births in Arizona has dropped by 36%.

No parent wants to hear that their child's school is closing. The uncertainty can bring stress and panic.

The reality of it is, districts need enough funding to keep schools open. When enrollment goes down, so do education funds.

Tom Horne, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, explains why districts have to make these tough decisions.

"I think there's been a decline. But, you know, I'm used to closing schools because I served 24 years on the Paradise Valley School Board, which at the time was the third-largest district in the state," Horne said.

Enrollment is declining in the Roosevelt School District, and other school districts in the Valley have recently faced the same challenge of low enrollment.

In fact, the six largest school districts in the Valley are reporting a decline in enrollment compared to five years ago.

Horne says districts change with the needs of families who live in them.

"What happens is, neighborhoods tend to age. So, where you had young families and the kids went to school, when the kids graduate from school, the whole neighborhood kind of together becomes a neighborhood that does not send kids to school," Horne explained.

Recently, Glendale Elementary School District closed five schools and Paradise Valley School District closed three schools.

"If you become less efficient because you keep all your schools, and they're operating below capacity, you have more administrative costs to maintain … If you waste money that way, you can't pay your teachers enough," Horne said.

He says declining enrollment numbers happen in different neighborhoods at different times, but so does growth.

"Yes, you typically you have both occurring at the same time. You have places where young people are moving in. They have kids and a school has to be built. Other neighborhoods that are aging, the kids are graduating from high school and there aren't enough young people moving in," the superintendent explained.

Horne says Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) vouchers are growing. There were about 80,000 families when the program started, and it's now up to about 84,000 out of Arizona's more than 1.1 million students.

Close to 900,000 attend public schools, while another 233,000 go to charter schools.

Not everyone agrees with Horne.

An Arizona education group, Save our Schools, says Arizona "students don't get the quality education they deserve."

Its website reads "Arizona legislative leadership has long favored budget cuts and tax credits for the wealthy over funding public services, particularly education. For the past decade, they have been guided by special interests intent on converting the public education system to a for- profit system."

Beth with Save our Schools added the following statement:

"Vouchers are the straw that is breaking the camel's back for public education, and Roosevelt is not the first and won't be the last school district to close schools due to AZ's universal voucher program. There are over 860 students in the Roosevelt school district now using an ESA voucher, which totals a $8,459,000 drain on the district -- however, 90% of these students never attended a public school. This highlights the financial drain of vouchers on our districts and the real-world impacts this irresponsible universal voucher program has on our communities. School closures have an incredibly damaging impact on students, families, educators and the community, and these impacts are often felt for generations."