Since 2020, K-12 enrollment in New York City has dropped by 9.5% with some 30,000 fewer students projected to walk classroom halls this school year.
A downward trend started long before stay-at-home orders and other COV ID-19 pandemic-related measures prompted more parents to seek alternatives to public schools. New York City’s Independent Budget Office began reporting public school enrollment declines in the 2015-16 school year. From 2002-to-2020, New York state experienced the nation’s sharpest loss, losing 11% of public school students over two decades.
Despite these well-reported enrollment figures, some New York City officials said they were shocked to see their budgets
