Enrollment for Ohio public schools drop; numbers for online charters, homeschooling soar
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Nearly a year into the pandemic, Ohio’s public schools are seeing big drops in their enrollment as many kids are choosing online options.
The Ohio Department of Education released student counts for this school year this week which indicate 90% of public school systems were affected with the loss of 53,000 students. The Class of 2021 lost 6,000 students, the Class of 2022 lost 2,000, and the Class of 2023 lost 8,000. Public pre-school enrollment dropped the most by 27%.
In central Ohio, Columbus City Schools lost more than 2,000 kids based on the annual attendance count conducted in October of 2020. That is a 5% drop in enrollment for the state’s largest school system from October 2019. Whitehall City Schools saw the biggest enrollment decrease in Franklin County of 9%.
In contrast, online charter schools saw numbers soar with a 50% increase in enrollment during the pandemic. That breaks down to 13,000 more students. The number of kindergartners starting their school years online made for the biggest enrollment increase by 250%. Homeschool also drew in 5,000 more students which is an increase of 25%
