No surprise here that enrollment in government schools is going down. Yes, population demographics have something to do with it. But, if you do not know the school would be open tomorrow, or that your child is being told they are the scum of the earth because of their DNA, or that they need a class in the Hugh Heffner School of Sex—why send your child to such a school.
Now children are told that doing homework is racist and getting the right answer to a math problem proves you are a racist—schools have become infested with bigoted, Luddites and haters. Is that what you want for your kids?
“Enrollment in the Ventura Unified School District has reached its lowest point in 25 years, a decline that will mean less funding for schools in years to come.
The district enrolled 15,874 students this past school year, the lowest population since 1996-97. At its largest, the district had 17,794 students in 2003-04. Ventura currently has 15,742 students enrolled for the fall.
Want to fix it? Return education to the schools, end the fearmongering of junk science and known liars like Dr. Fauci. Until then families will leave the State, homeschool, create Education POD’s and stay away from the unsafe schools—physically and emotionally.
Enrollment in Ventura Unified School District reaches lowest point in 25 years
Shivani Patel, Ventura County Star, 7/24/21
Enrollment in the Ventura Unified School District has reached its lowest point in 25 years, a decline that will mean less funding for schools in years to come.
The district enrolled 15,874 students this past school year, the lowest population since 1996-97. At its largest, the district had 17,794 students in 2003-04. Ventura currently has 15,742 students enrolled for the fall.
District officials presented the data on declining enrollment at Tuesday’s school board meeting. Trustees tasked Superintendent Roger Rice and Vice President Matt Almaraz with hammering out details for a committee that will focus on ways to address the decline and its effects.
“We need to really get a good handle on what’s happening before we make any rash decisions,” Board President Velma Lomax said.
Enrollment decline is not unique to Ventura — it’s been happening for years across California’s public schools.
Enrollment in publicly funded K-12 schools decreased by more than 160,000 from last school year to this year, according to data from the California Department of Education. In Ventura County, it dropped from 135,312 students to 131,481 in the same period.
Anna Campbell, the district’s director of budget and finance, said a dramatic decline started in the last five years, with the district losing “chunks” of students year-to-year. The 2017 Thomas Fire that destroyed 504 homes in Ventura and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic resulted in major enrollment drops.
“Those events are dramatically affecting our community as we all experienced, but … you can see what it’s doing to our enrollment as well,” Campbell said.
The district lost 460 students between 2017-18 and 2018-19, and 362 students between 2019-20 and this past school year.
The district’s enrollment hasn’t always been in decline.
“If you go back to the mid-1990s … the projection was we were going to continue to grow,” said Trustee Jerry Dannenberg, who was also a longtime Ventura administrator and principal.
The district built two schools, Foothill Technology High and Citrus Glen Elementary, at the time and bought property on Ventura Avenue in anticipation of needing another school, Dannenberg said.
Now, the district is looking to scale back for a variety of reasons, including lower birth rates and the rising cost of living.
The decline is much faster than the district could have predicted a decade ago, Campbell said, and it spells trouble for future funding.
While the district’s enrollment has fluctuated in the past — it was around 16,000 in the ’70s, and around 14,000 in the ’80s — it has never had such change while under the state’s current funding model, Campbell said.
Districts in the county rely mostly on a mix of state and local funding. The state uses the Local Control Funding Formula, which allocates money to school districts primarily based on average daily attendance.
With less funding, districts typically make cuts to their budget, which could mean anything from moderate reductions in school programs and staff to more drastic measures such as school closures. Campbell said staff reductions alone would not compensate for the drop in funding.
