Public school enrollment is on a slow but noticeable decline in many parts of the country鈥攁nd rural schools are no exception.
Just shy of 10 million K-12 students attend public schools classified by the federal government as rural. The percentage of America鈥檚 public school students attending rural schools has ticked upward from 18.5 percent in 2012 to 20.3 percent in 2022, according to .
Those large numbers, however, obscure deep challenges in rural school operations. For the last several decades, rural districts in many parts of the country have , , and , as downward trends in the broader population take a toll.
A surge of interest in rural areas at the start of the pandemic helped reverse this trend somewhat in some rural regions, but it wasn鈥檛 enough to keep many rural schools out of the dire straits they鈥檝e been contending with for decades as economic鈥攁nd population鈥攇rowth has shifted to metropolitan areas.
Nationwide, adults are also having fewer children than in previous generations. Fewer children means fewer K-12 students and fewer per-pupil funds for schools.
That phenomenon can be particularly troubling for rural schools, which operate on more precarious economies of scale than their bigger and more densely populated counterparts.
When rural schools lose even a few students and the funding that comes with them, they often have to make difficult cuts of crucial staff and programs to stay afloat.
These aren鈥檛 new phenomena. In California, some rural districts that had more than 1,000 students in the early 2000s . Enrollment in rural Massachusetts schools .
In some cases, schools are grappling with existential consequences. The single-building Healy district in Kansas dropped from 40 students in the 2021-22 school year to . High-school students now travel two days a week to a different school building with more academic offerings 40 miles away. And leaders are preparing a plan to dissolve the district.
Schools can鈥檛 change those statistics on their own. All they can do is try to operate within those constraints.
鈥淲e鈥檙e really just fighting the statistics of smaller family units,鈥� said Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Rural Schools Association, which counts 170 of the state鈥檚 290 districts among its members. 鈥淎ll the same statistics are the same in the urban areas. It鈥檚 just easier to see in a rural area.鈥�
Here鈥檚 what鈥檚 happening with enrollment in rural schools鈥攁nd what the future could look like.
There is no uniform rural school experience
The term 鈥渞ural鈥� encompasses a wide range of environments and experiences, from small towns buoyed by a thriving 鈥淢ain Street鈥� to sprawling areas with little but farmland, ranches, or forest for miles.
It鈥檚 also a fluid term, one that some places begin to shed as population grows and nearby characteristics evolve.
Even within the federal government, the definition differs greatly from one agency to the next, .
The U.S. Census Bureau defines urbanized areas as places with more than 50,000 people. Urban clusters have between 2,500 and 50,000. Any place that falls outside those two categories is rural.
The National Center for Education Statistics breaks down rural schools into three sub-categories鈥�"fringe,鈥� 鈥渄istant,鈥� and 鈥渞emote,鈥� depending on their distance from an area the Census Bureau considers urbanized.
In Indiana, the rural schools association includes districts near small towns, districts close to the lake regions of the north, districts that lie 30 to 40 miles from any major town, and districts in suburban areas that have some rural areas within their boundaries.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 worry about definitions,鈥� Lagoni said. 鈥淚f you think you鈥檙e rural, you鈥檙e rural.鈥�
The slippery nature of the term can make identifying uniform trends more difficult.
Bill Chapman has spent most of his career as a superintendent of rural school districts in Texas. But even though all of his districts were classified as rural, they didn鈥檛 all look the same.
First he led the Jarrell school district just north of Austin. Its student population more than doubled over the eight years he was there.
Then he led the Palacios school district, an hour outside downtown Austin. 鈥淲e were 30 miles from the nearest H-E-B [supermarket], Walmart, or Whataburger,鈥� he said.
That district is small, and getting smaller by 25 to 40 students a year. While he was there, he led an effort to consolidate its four school buildings (elementary, intermediate, junior high, and senior high) into two (elementary and secondary).
Now he鈥檚 superintendent of the London school district near Corpus Christi. The east side of the district could easily be classified as rural鈥斺�渘othing but farm and ranch land,鈥� he said. But on the west side, nearby towns are rapidly growing.
Districts like Palacios and London are experiencing opposite struggles of similar magnitude, Chapman said. Palacios is losing students, and thus has to do the same with fewer per-pupil dollars. London, meanwhile, is racing to keep up staffing to meet increasing demand.
Either way, Chapman says, budgeting for these significant changes is always a losing game. District leaders don鈥檛 find out their final enrollment counts until months after they鈥檝e locked in their operating budgets for the school year. If a high school has more students than expected, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 re-create the master schedule to add a teacher,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not really living in real time.鈥�
Remote school districts are suffering the steepest enrollment drops
For many students emerging from school in rural areas, job opportunities are limited if they want to stay close to home.
鈥淚f I鈥檓 a kid in Texas, and I鈥檓 not going into the family farm business, I鈥檝e got a nuclear power plant on one side and a plastics plant on the other鈥攊f I鈥檓 not going into one of those, I鈥檓 going to find another place to live,鈥� Chapman said.
Some families are selling off tracts of land to developers rather than continuing to use it for their own purposes. Developers convert the land to new housing or commercial real estate, and the rural nature of the area changes.
The perennial reality of the rural school district is that economic opportunities for graduating students will always be greater elsewhere, said John Sipple, a professor of global development at Cornell University who studies public schools and rural communities.
Even if someone wants to start their own business, the client base is likely to be larger in a suburban or urban environment.
鈥淭he message this sends to children in schools, unintentionally and intentionally, is that everything important in this world鈥攅conomically, socially鈥攊s elsewhere,鈥� Sipple said.
Rural areas gained ground early in the pandemic鈥攂ut that hasn鈥檛 lasted
The overall rural population in America started growing in recent years after decades of decline. But those gains weren鈥檛 evenly distributed鈥攎ore than half of counties classified as rural continued to lose population, according to .
Enrollment declines in many rural New York school districts can be traced back to the , as many big businesses laid off workers and moved south, said Heather Zellers, director of information and advocacy for the Rural Schools Association of New York.
In the early months of the pandemic, when businesses were shut down and the virus was running rampant in cities, some families flocked to less-congested areas.
In New York, school enrollment in rural areas near the Finger Lakes and in the Adirondack Mountains ticked upward as parents took advantage of the increasing flexibility to work remotely.
鈥淭hey loved the smaller classrooms. They loved the one-on-one attention,鈥� Zellers said.
But a shortage of available housing has prevented that microtrend from becoming something more lasting, Zellers said.
Emerging policies that expand school choice are also contributing to rural enrollment dips in some places.
In Michigan, where families can enroll students in any district, one-quarter of students attend a school in a district other than the one closest to where they live, according to an . A handful of districts now enroll only half of the students who live within their boundaries, according to the Bridge MI data. Many more have lost dozens of students to larger districts.
This month, Montana passed a similar open-enrollment law that has some smaller schools .
To lure more students, rural schools need community partners
Rural schools aren鈥檛 completely powerless to stem the tide of declining enrollment. Their leaders might need to adjust their thinking, though.
Years ago, Sipple attended a school board meeting where community leaders were wringing their hands over how to attract more families to the area, and by extension students to the schools. Some attendees threw out the idea of lowering educational expectations, like removing some academically rigorous graduation requirements. Sipple balked.
鈥淒on鈥檛 build your wall around a community to keep your kids in,鈥� Sipple said. 鈥淏uild magnets that make them want to come back.鈥�
More robust鈥攁nd more affordable鈥攃hild care options would be a big magnet for families, Sipple said.
Schools could also get more creative with staffing: sharing teachers with neighboring districts and taking advantage of digital learning opportunities.
鈥淢aybe the elementary schools and junior high schools stay the same, but when it鈥檚 time for high school, rather than the school district merging with another district entirely, you essentially merge high schools,鈥� Sipple said.
In Indiana, Lagoni鈥檚 association is working with municipal leaders to encourage building more housing for seniors, opening up more of the existing housing stock for families with school-age children.
鈥淭he seniors would like to stay in their communities where they have doctors and friends,鈥� Lagoni said. 鈥淲hat can we do as policy advocates to provide them other resources?鈥�
Major state investments in broadband expansion have also helped make rural communities more attractive for younger people, Lagoni said.
Ultimately, Sipple believes the burden of saving rural schools shouldn鈥檛 fall on school systems alone. Local businesses, community colleges, extension agencies, and health care systems all have a role to play.
鈥淲hen you see that real synergy, those real partnerships, you start to see what can happen,鈥� Sipple said.
