Richardson ISD enrollment down by more than 2,000 students

Richardson ISD has over 2,000 fewer students enrolled in school than it did this time last year.

The district had 37,385 students enrolled on Sept. 15, a drop of 2,105 compared to last year when 39,490 students were enrolled on Sept. 9, 2019.

When compared to 2019, kindergarten and grades 5 and 9 saw the greatest declines, Brenda Payne, assistant superintendent for administrative services, told the school board during Monday’s board of trustees study session.

The drop in pre-K and kindergarten enrollment was expected because there was discussion in the community that parents were planning to not enroll their children amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, she said.

There is also a decline in the district’s bilingual student enrollment, a trend that has happened for the past few years, Payne said.

“There are a lot of reasons, a lot of things we can speculate; we don’t have specific data on that, but we definitely see that as a trend in our district,” Payne said.

The highest declines in enrollment — more than 400 students — was seen in the Accelerating Campus Excellence (ACE) program. The district is still gathering data, but a lot of those students have moved, Payne said. The ACE program serves some of the highest-need students in the district.

The district’s budget was calculated with an estimate of 39,422 students for the current year. However, the district still has time for enrollment to increase before the official Public Education Information Management System snapshot takes place on Oct. 30.

“Because enrollment fluctuates daily and the snapshot date is five weeks away, it’s early for a projected budgetary impact. We continue to track enrollment and provide services to students based on each family’s instructional choices.” Tim Clark, Richardson ISD spokesperson.

Due to the pandemic, the district moved to a dual learning program this year. The number of students enrolled in face-to-face instruction and virtual enrollment is fairly consistent across the district, Payne said, although there is a slightly higher face-to-face enrollment in the Pearce learning community. In grades pre-K, kindergarten and first grade, there are also more students learning face-to-face than virtually.

The next window to allow parents to change their child’s enrollment from either face-to-face or virtual instruction is Sept. 29 through Oct. 2.