Any Private School Parents Seeing HUGE Drops in Enrollment This School Year?

[java]

My youngest attends a private preschool. I had not heard about first day so I called to find out that they only have 6 kids signed up for the class. (when my older son was there 2 years ago he had 18 in his class!) I was worried they would just cancel the class- but nope it's going on with just the 6 of them. I'm thrilled that he'll get that special attention but worried for the school as a whole.

 

[wtccheermom]

There is waiting list at all the major private schools where I live also. We are a military family and usually my children attend public school but where we are at now very few public schools are up to par and especially not the one my children were to attend which is right outside of the base. Another problem with public schools here are it is a border town so the limited English proficiency is very high at some of the schools. My children attend a catholic school and you pay through an automatic debit every month that starts in July and ends in April. We have had to make a few sacrifices( not dining out as much, and WDW vacations have gone from 9-10 days to 6-7 and not every summer) being a one income family with 2 children in private school but it is worth it as long as we live where we do.

 

[MOMTOMOOTOO]

My kids do not attend pricate school, but I hear this is a waiting list still. I will not comment on the "non tuition paying people" because I miss my beagle that was in my signature

 

[ccgirl]

My DD6 private school is K-8. There has always been a waiting list for the K class (sometimes more than 50) until this year. There are actually openings in the incoming K class. The town built a brand new elementary school. I think people thought between the new school and economy it would be better to enroll their children there. Out of the 30 children enrolled in the K class last year, all but 4 are moving on to grade 1 at the private school. The others are going to public and one is leaving only because she needs special needs and the private school doesn't offer it.

 

[rie'smom]

Same experience here. My daughter is in public school. We are in a very good district which may make a difference because the people sending their kids to private school do so entirely for religious reasons. Friends that do go private still are but I haven't heard of others that now have school-age kids, starting in private. I wonder if the largest decrease is being seen in first grade?

I think a lot of the schools are struggling with the fact that people used their services last year and never paid them - I'm not talking about the people who applied for financial aid, which I am sure has also increased. (I see one has had the gall to post in this thread and lie about the reason the children are not enrolled this year. Those Christian values are something else.) Anyway, I'm sure this year any decrease in enrollment is really having a severe effect due to the compounding of all these issues.

I noticed that too!

Come on girls, we're not in high school anymore. Play pretty. It's none of anyone's business.

 

[BCV513]

Ours dropped last year to the point the school had to combine classes (1st & 2nd, 3rd & 4th, 5th & 6th). One teacher taught two grades. We tried to hang on but had to pull ours this year. It was a tough decision. We had enrolled them with the thought they would graduate high school there. DS had been with the same group of friends for 8 years. This year there are two of them left at the school (DS would have been #3). One of my friends at church worked for the early learning center (K1-K4) and she said they let her go right before school started back because they only had 18 kids in the whole building. Haven't heard how the rest of the school is doing.

Another area private school announced they were closing during the summer because their enrollment was down so much.

My goodness, you think we have short memories here! The parochial school I was teaching at closed in June because of parents like you who thought they could send their children for a year without paying tuition. Schools simply can't survive like that. It's Economics 101.

 

[live4christp1]

My goodness, you think we have short memories here! The parochial school I was teaching at closed in June because of parents like you who thought they could send their children for a year without paying tuition. Schools simply can't survive like that. It's Economics 101.

Don't ever remember saying I went a year without paying. In fact I just paid off the balance last Friday having convinced DH to cash out some IRA's specifically to take care of the last TWO remaining payments. And for the record before any of that even happened I had already met with the administrator and assistant (both in June & July) who expressed that they were more than happy to work with us for the coming year to keep the kids there. Thanks though!

Sorry to the OP - not intentionally highjacking your thread.

 

[PinkRhombus]

That is definitely NOT the case here in Louisville. Our private schools have a strong background. And even the non-parochial schools thrive because the public schools have major issues.

They fiddled with the student assignment this year. Can't go to the school down the street because the average income of the student's families is too high...but they will make the parents put kindergartenrs on a bus for 3 hours a day (1.5 hrs each way with stops and transfers) and have them go clear across the county 30 miles away. A lot of parents pulled their kids out. Overall our public schools are down 10,000 students. That's around 400 teachers that they should have to lay off.

So those 10,000 students have either gone to private school, are now being homeschooled, or have moved into one of the surrounding counties were there are not bussing issues.


Some schools had to combine though. The parishes got smaller and smaller because there was no where for the younger families to move nearby because the older people stayed in the houses around the churches. So the younger people moved further out in the county and the parishes out in this area have grown and grown.

My area of the county is one of the highest growth areas in the state. So we keep adding on classes each year.

 

[tinatark]

One of our local private schools just closed - it had been in business for 20 years - they blame the economy, but in reality it was poor business management that did it in. It was a church minstry, then a separate entity - earlier this year the church was asked to take it back, and it did, but greatly reduced the headmasters' salary - he then left to go to a church in another state and the church decided to close the school. This was a pre-school (age 2) -high school.

The other larger private school has much more oversight - a board of directors, headmaster, principals in elementary and high schools, and it is not growing, but not losing students, either. This is also a pre-school (age 3-4) - high school and has boarding students from abroad.

My take on the economy and many of the businesses that are closing is that the closures were imminent, anyway - many of the shops we've seen close should have never been open to begin with; and the school I am referencing has not been properly operated (my kids have been students at both schools) in many years.

Blame the economy is being seen as an acceptable excuse for poor decisions by many.

 

[rie'smom]

My goodness, you think we have short memories here! The parochial school I was teaching at closed in June because of parents like you who thought they could send their children for a year without paying tuition. Schools simply can't survive like that. It's Economics 101.

I think people should pay their bills but I also think that bringing up old posts from a different thread is wrong and it's childish.

 

[lulu71]

My kids's school is at about the same enrollment. I have heard that a lot of private school parents are pulling their kids and putting them in Catholic Schools, which would be quite a bit of a savings (like $10K/year).

 

[toystorymom]

My mother teaches in a Catholic School and her class size this year is 12! Most of the other grades have about 15 students. This is definitely less than it has ever been. My own children are in a public school (we live in different towns) and the class size is averaging about 25 this year. That is much higher than in previous years. I have looked into private and/or Catholic schools in our area and they are over $10,000, multiply that by 3 kids and well, that's why we are still in public schools.

 

[NotUrsula]

My archdiocese has I think the third-largest parochial school district in the U.S. in terms of enrollment, but things haven't been really good for them in a while. The local deaneries have been working on plans for school closures for several years now, just because of shrinking family size and the tendency of families with children to want to move to suburbia for a larger house; the city parishes are dealing with aging parishioners and declining enrollment. Our grade school is safe from this -- I think we have 9 new families this year coming in from neighboring parishes whose schools may be closing soon. However, ours is the second most-affluent parish in the metro area, and the principal reports that number of families on the extended-payment financing plan is WAY up this year. (Using the plan costs $200 in interest/fees. Previously most of our families paid in advance to avoid that.)

The suburban parishes and the Diocesan high schools are seeing enrollment effects from the economy, and that is a lot more telling than our experiences in the city. A story this morning in our local newspaper was talking about cost-cutting in high school sports programs, and they mentioned that enrollment at the most affluent diocesan high school in this area was down to 375 students this year, from 500 last year.

The prep high schools and the independent schools are probably fine, because they are very competitive and have long waiting lists.

PS: Parochial grade school here (Catholic or Lutheran) costs an avg. of $5K. Diocesan HS is around $8K, and the preps start at around $10K and go up to slightly over $14K. The Catholic schools have a HUGE multiple-child discount, though -- at ours 3 children will only cost $700 more than one child, and there is no add'l fee starting with the fourth child on up.) The independent schools tend to charge in the low $20K range for HS. We also have some affluent school districts that take paying pupils; that tends to run around $11K (they do it because their enrollment is down -- in this economy REALLY expensive homes tend to be a splurge for the childless who have more disposable income.)

 

[mamacatnv]

I'm not sure about our local private schools - my DD goes to a high achieving Charter School and we are full but at $400 annually, our fee's are extremely low.

My DS attends our local university and they didn't even open 2 full dorms that were open last year. Also he lives in off campus student housing that last year at this time had a waiting list and this year they have 50 vacancies.

 

[live4christp1]

Ours had been more a steady decline though. Was thinking about the number of kids in class:

DS - K4 - 10 students
K5 - 21 students that was the biggest class he's been in but at that time in Tennessee if you paid for 1/2 kindergarden it counted just like paying for day care on your taxes at the end of the year.
1st grade - 17
2nd - 15
3rd - 14
4th - back to 15
5th - 12 (the school dropped one of the big sports programs so some of the middle school kids left so they could play middle school sports)
6th grade - 7 students in 6th grade......5th & 6th grade in one room this year so half 5th and half 6th for a total of 14 in the class room.

DD K4 - 11 students
K5 - 7 students

 

[BCV513]

Don't ever remember saying I went a year without paying. In fact I just paid off the balance last Friday having convinced DH to cash out some IRA's specifically to take care of the last TWO remaining payments. And for the record before any of that even happened I had already met with the administrator and assistant (both in June & July) who expressed that they were more than happy to work with us for the coming year to keep the kids there. Thanks though!

Sorry to the OP - not intentionally highjacking your thread.

You're more than welcome.

That must be why the school witheld your kids' records until you paid your tuition - because they were more than happy to work with you.

 

[emma'smom]

Our private school is at capacity overall, but they did lose a several students over the summer. I'm watching the numbers in my dd7's class to see how it goes. If too many leave, we'll leave as well (a tipping point) because I want my daughter to actually be in a "class" and have a number of peers her own age. The tuition isn't horrible, but our public schools aren't bad and the extra $$ each month would be nicely saved. However, I didn't want to pull her since she is happy and I agree with the teaching philosophy (and really like her teacher).

 

[nuke]

All snark aside non-tuition paying parents are a big problem for private schools. My son attends Catholic school here and there are families that owe from 3-4 years ago. They pulled their kids out and sent them to pubilc but never paid the balance due the school.

The school made some major changes 2 years ago to try to avoid this problem in the future. One is withholding records, another is not allowing the child to come to school if you are more than 2 months behind. It seems to have worked as the budget is balanced for the upcoming year.

And enrollment is up by 22 students this year so that's good news for us.

 

[ObsessedwiththeMouse]

..

 

[luvmarypoppins]

The school my ds attends will probably see an increase in enrollment or maybe break even. They have offered a 50% discount for new students this year.

Sadly, the school he used to attend, that only goes up to 8th grade is seeing a huge drop in enrollment because of the other schools offer. I am on the school council of this school and unfortunately we are having to consider letting 2 teachers go and combining classes etc.

In this economy sending your child to a private school is becoming a luxury, not a neccessity for alot of families, religiously speaking though, some parents consider sending their kids to these school a religious priority. I am glad ds is a senior this year.