The Springfield Public School district, the third largest in Massachusetts, announced Tuesday that 800 fewer students were enrolled this school year, a much higher number than previously understood.
The figure is over three times higher than what was projected for the 2026-27 school year, based on figures from the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) according to the district. Schools rely on the NESDEC, birth rates and census data for budgeting and other planning.
“We're still grappling with the why,” said Superintendent Sonia Dinnall, “but it is a statewide issue. We are not the only district experiencing a decrease, but we are feeling it very much.”
Annually in Springfield, October is when the district starts to plan for the following year's school budget, one that is largely made up of state funding based on student population.
In October is also when officials de-enroll students who haven't been attending school. That, according Springfield School Committee Vice Chairwoman LaTonia Monroe Naylor, is how they found the discrepancy.
The 800 students represent approximately $20 million in funding, said Superintendent Dinnall. The lower number of students will not impact this school year’s budget she said, but it will have a significant impact in the 2027-28 school year.
The funding deficit is in addition to the end of the federal Student Opportunity Act, a COVID-era grant. In Springfield, the loss amounts to $20 million which the district says it has been preparing.
Ongoing student decline
Since 2020 student enrollment in the district, like elsewhere, had been in decline, by approximately 200 students a year, according to the schools’ Chief Financial and Operations Officer Patrick Roach.
“We use NESDEC to do enrollment projections for us, and they do a birth cohort model. The births are way down across the state, across the nation,” Roach said, adding that initially NESDEC projected the district would lose about 250 students this year, Roach explained.
“Now we need to go in and analyze where the rest of these students left from,” Roach said.
The loss is spread almost evenly across pre-K through grade 12, said Chief of Family and Community Engagement for Springfield Public Schools Jose Escribano.
In addition to lower birth rates in Massachusetts and nationally, Escobar said immigration enforcement could also be at play.
Other Massachusetts communities and schools with significant immigrant populations have been impacted by enforcement , Escribano said.
“Although we don't have all the information. we're exploring how much … that has impacted enrollment this year,” Escribano said.
Students without permanent housing could be another factor.
Statewide declines and the closing of buildings
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu this week proposed shutting two high schools and an early education center as part of that district’s response to declining enrollment, The Boston Globe reported Monday.
The proposed closures are assumed, like in Springfield and elsewhere, because of low birthrates and a decline in immigration.
It's a trend that is colliding with the state’s school funding formula, which educators and communities have said is failing them.
Massachusetts lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey have agreed to revisit for the first time in more than a decade.
“It is my philosophy that we make the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible if we need to make cuts,” said Superintendent Dinnall.
The district will look closely at current job vacancies to determine if they need to be filled and at closing buildings she said.
“We have a number of buildings that we don't necessarily own, and so the lease on those buildings may present an opportunity for us to determine if we can consolidate and co-locate some of our programs with a decrease in enrollment,” Dinnall said, adding there’s little they can do about climbing utility costs.
Where are the students?
For the most pat, students are not typically un- unenrolled unless the district can verify they’re in a new school or a new state Escribano said.
By and large though he said, they know where students go when they leave the district but, “there are rare occasions where … [a] student moves out of the state, out of the district and we just can't locate them,” he said adding, “sometimes it happens with some of our migrant families or immigrant families.”
This is a much larger issue, said school committee member Denise Hurst, “if these students have left us and are not matriculated in a district and we don't know where they've gone.”
Hurst and others also mentioned the 2030 Census.
“If we are not able to count students and their families, we're going to find ourselves having to contend with this type of fiscal challenge at a much higher rate than we could ever imagine,” Hurst said, adding that NESDEC’s figures are going to be even more off in the coming years.
This is not just a district problem said school committee Vice Chair Naylor.
“We need the community to understand this is not just a school district issue. We don't dictate what money we get from the state or the federal government. We do what we can to make sure we're budgeting it, and we do what we can to make sure that our kids get what they need,” Naylor said, adding that people need to advocate for the district mentioning several organizations and the employee unions.
