While construction cranes dot the skyline and Madison’s population booms, enrollment in Madison’s school district continues to decline.
There are many reasons for this decline but one factor is measurable. Each year over the past decade, hundreds of students who live in the Madison Metropolitan School District have chosen to attend other public school districts through the state’s robust open enrollment program, which allows families to enroll their children in another district early each year.
That program is draining students from Madison, with open enrollment students making up the majority of students who leave the district. They accounted for 87% of the students who transferred out in 2020-21 and 74% in 2021-22, according to a study the district commissioned from the UW-Madison Applied Population Lab.
In 2021-22, 519 students open-enrolled into Madison schools, and 1,416 transferred out, for a net loss of 897 students. Going back a decade, between 781 and 1,031 students who live in Madison attended other districts annually.
At the same time, the number of students enrolled in the district dropped 7%, from 27,028 in 2013-14 to 25,139 in 2022-23. “When we lose students, it’s never OK,” says Madison school board member Nicki Vander Meulen.
Declining enrollment is serious business because state dollars follow those students to their new districts. Each regular education student will bring $8,618 to their new district in the 2023-24 school year. That figure is $13,470 for special education students — and more if the student has extensive needs.
A spokesperson for the district declined to provide the exact amount of revenue the district loses to open enrollment, but a rough estimate assuming all students are regular education students comes to $7.7 million a year.
Families don’t provide reasons when they apply for open enrollment, so there is no data. And Madison does not have a formal process for gathering data from families that leave. Still, there are some ideas.
“It’s a funding issue created by revenue limits,” board member Vander Meulen says, referring to the state’s strict limits on funds for schools. “Surrounding districts have newer facilities. Look, East High School is 101 years old. Even with massive renovations, older schools like East and West will not feel like brand-new schools.”
But facilities are only one factor. “Particularly in the aftermath of COVID and virtual learning, some students want smaller environments,” Vander Meulen says. “For some students, large classes and schools are overwhelming after Zoom learning.”
Transportation is another issue, she points out. The district’s ragged lines don’t match neighborhood lines.“For some families, a school in a suburb might be closer to their home than their assigned school.”
The demographics of the students who transfer to other public school districts do not provide any clear answers. White and Black students leave the district in similar numbers, with each group accounting for about 30% of the departing students in 2021-22. The next largest group was Hispanic/Latino students, at 19.3%.
Surrounding districts
In 2021-22, Middleton was the other area district that lost students through open enrollment, with a net loss of 153. Sun Prairie and Verona were essentially even.
Monona Grove had the largest net gain of 351, followed by Waunakee with 205. McFarland reports a gain of 4,210 students, but that includes its large virtual program, and those numbers are not separated out from students at the brick and mortar schools.
Superintendents can only guess at why students are attracted to their districts.
Some students certainly transfer to Monona Grove because of Madison’s uneven district boundaries, says Dan Olson, the district superintendent there. There are homes that are much closer to Monona Grove High School than to LaFollette High School.
“The one thing I’m confident in saying is that families are attracted to Monona Grove because of our low class sizes, particularly in our elementary schools,” Olson says. Small class size may also draw students to Waunakee, says Randy Guttenberg, district administrator. There are no readily available class size numbers that would allow for district-to-district comparisons.
Under Wisconsin’s open enrollment law, districts can turn down applicants only for the reasons listed: a lack of space, if the student has been expelled for endangering property or people, if the student’s special education needs cannot be met, or if the student has been truant.
Allowing districts to deny applicants based on their special education needs appears to limit the ability of those students to transfer. Last year, Isthmus reported that Verona created 115 additional open enrollment spaces exclusively for regular education students.
Families can apply outside the open enrollment period through an alternative process under specific criteria.
Applicants are not guaranteed acceptance. In 2021, 7,430 applications were denied statewide out of 41,554 applications, DPI data shows. Lack of space was the most common reason, accounting for 4,873 denials — followed by special education reasons, at 1,667.
Growing population
District officials often blame a slowing birth rate for the declining school population. It’s true that the birth rate in Dane County is down, but the number of school-age children in the district boundaries was actually larger in 2020 than in 2010, according to the UW study.
The city of Madison grew by 17% between 2010 and 2022 to 272,903, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The population of Dane County grew to 568,203 in that same time period, a growth rate of 16.4%
In line with that growth, the UW study found that the number of school-age children from ages 5 to 19 had increased between 2010 and 2020.
Still, in the last five years, district enrollment has dropped by 1.7%, with a drop of 2.1% in elementary grades, 1.4% in middle school grades, and 0.4% in grades 9 to 12, says Sarah Kemp, a researcher with the Population Lab.
The predicted enrollment drops for upcoming years are alarming. The UW study forecasts that in the next five years, enrollment in the district will drop by 10%, with drops of 11.5% in 4K, 12% in elementary grades, 8% in middle grades, and 9% in high school grades.
To retain funding and maintain its extensive system of buildings and programs, Madison will need to find ways to stanch the flow. Major renovations to the high schools and a 4K program are some of the district’s efforts to boost its numbers.
The district also needs to attract students by offering programming that is inclusive to students at all levels, says Vander Meulen. “All students need to feel they are meeting their goals.”
