Worcester school enrollment sees biggest decline in 12 years

WORCESTER — The city schools saw their biggest student enrollment decline in more than a decade this year, according to new data released by the state.

According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Worcester had 25,044 students as of Oct. 1, the day the state bases its annual enrollment count on each year. In 2018, there were 25,415 students in the district on that date.

The decrease in enrollment of 371 students is the most in Worcester since 2008, when the district had 727 fewer students than in 2007, state records show.

Typically, that level of drop-off would not bode well for city schools’ state funding next year, which is based in large part on how many students they enrolled the previous year.

But this year is the first since the state Legislature passed a new funding reform bill that promises to dramatically increase state aid to long underfunded systems like Worcester. While on the surface the enrollment decline is not a good starting point for Worcester’s next budget cycle, Brian Allen, the district’s chief financial and operations officer, said it’s too soon to say whether the schools will see a challenging fiscal 2021 as a result like it might have in years past.

"It would mean a decline in the foundation budget, all things being equal," he said, referring to the base state aid amount Worcester would stand to see from the state.

Specifically, Allen said, the district would be starting off with a net decline of $3.7 million because of the drop in enrollment.

When Gov. Charlie Baker releases his fiscal 2021 recommended budget next week, however, it could include funding that would more than offset that gap, Allen added. As a result of the passage of the Student Opportunity Act last year, the state is supposed to start phasing in school funding changes that local officials have estimated would net Worcester tens of millions of dollars in additional funding over the next several years.

For now, however, the state has discouraged districts from talking about just how much extra they could receive in fiscal 2021 until the governor and Legislature release their spending plans, Superintendent Maureen Binienda said during a presentation about the funding bill at Thursday night’s School Committee meeting.

Within the overall enrollment decline this year, meanwhile, Worcester saw differing trends for key subgroups, some of which also factor into the state’s school aid formula. The district’s English language learner population, for instance, dropped from 32.8% of the system total in 2018 to 31.7%.

But the percentage of economically disadvantaged students increased over that span from 57.9% to 59.7%.

Allen said the cause of the total enrollment decrease is still an unknown, although he pointed out the Oct. 1 count is ultimately just a snapshot in time, since the student population in Worcester changes over the course of the school year as students come and go from the district.

The School Department’s own enrollment projections predicted a slightly smaller decline of 53 students this year, according to the district’s fiscal 2020 budget book; the student population is expected to remain mostly flat over the next three years.

"We’ve seen instances like this in the past," Allen said, where the actual enrollment numbers fall well below or above the district’s estimates. "It does happen from time to time."

Scott O’Connell can be reached at Scott.O’Connell@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottOConnellTG