Four reasons why 1% of the student population seems to be missing from Wisconsin schools

About 1% of Wisconsin's estimated student population seems to be missing from school headcounts, a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found.

The report relied on data from fall 2019 through fall 2022, as enrollment data for the current school year have not yet been released.

The lead researchers, Sara Shaw and Ari Brown, found that during that time, public school enrollment fell by about 32,000 students. The total was 854,959 in fall 2019 and 822,804 in fall 2022.

Most of that drop was easy to explain: birth rates continued declining, and many students moved into private schools and homeschooling.

But after considering those factors, the researchers were still unable to explain a shortfall of about 4,500 to 11,600 students. That represents about 0.5% to 1.2% of the state's school-age population.

Some of the drop could be from families leaving the state, which is difficult to track. However, even zooming out to the national level, there are unexplained drop-offs. A February report by Stanford University, Big Local News and the Associated Press found that researchers were unable to explain about a third of the enrollment decline in public schools nationwide between fall 2019 and fall 2021.

"It's very much cause for concern," Shaw said, "and I think reflects how much turmoil the pandemic brought."

Here's what the researchers believe may be happening to the missing students in Wisconsin.

Fewer pre-K students are going to school

When the pandemic hit, no grade levels experienced enrollment declines nearly as much as pre-kindergarten. In the fall of 2020, enrollment dropped 16% from the previous year.

Schools around the country saw similar trends, as many parents delayed sending their youngest kids to school. Children in Wisconsin are not required by state law to attend school until age 6.

While pre-kindergarten enrollment has recovered somewhat, it remained in fall 2022 at 10% below pre-pandemic levels.

Families could still be keeping their children at home, researchers said, or homeschooling them. Students who are homeschooled don't get counted in state data until first grade.

Additionally, more families could be opting for full-day child care centers instead of pre-kindergarten programs, which are sometimes only part-day.

"For a lot of working families, that's insufficient," Shaw said. "I think the question is, are these programs meeting parents' needs?"

The researchers noted that pandemic relief funding through the Child Care Counts program may have made full-day child care centers more affordable in recent years. That program is set to expire in January.

More: Struggling to afford child care in Wisconsin? Here's where to find help.

Migrant student populations declined

Wisconsin's population of migrant students — whose parents move for seasonal dairy or agricultural work — dropped in half from fall 2019 to fall 2022, according to the Policy Forum's report.

Wisconsin counted about 450 migrant students in 2019 and 225 in 2022, state data show.

"The state may wish to investigate this dramatic decline to understand whether it is due to migratory labor changes causing fewer of these workers and their families reside in Wisconsin or to engage in migratory work, whether fewer students are otherwise getting categorized as migrant students, or whether these are truly 'missing students,'" the researchers wrote.

Students could be missed in private schools and homeschool

While private school enrollment did fall somewhat in 2020, it recovered the next year and continued to rise. In fall 2022, Wisconsin private schools had over 124,000 students, almost 4,000 more than before the pandemic.

Homeschool boomed in 2020, increasing by over 10,000 students to a total of nearly 32,000 Wisconsin students being homeschooled. The popularity has waned but was still overall about a third higher in 2022 than pre-pandemic levels, with about 29,000 students homeschooling last year.

The students who were counted in those shifts were not considered "missing" from public schools by the researchers, because they are accounted for in private schools and homeschools.

However, researchers noted there could be even more students in those environments who are not counted in the data, which might explain a portion of the "missing" students.

State officials told the researchers that private and home schools are not held to the same enrollment reporting standards as public schools, "meaning that there are likely private and homeschool students who exist in the state but are not captured by (Department of Public Instruction) counts," the researchers wrote.

Students may be chronically absent or disengaged

Most concerning, some young people could have fully dropped out of school or been absent so often that they weren't counted by their schools on any of the headcount days.

Researchers said it's possible that pandemic-related school closures and mental health challenges could have caused some students to feel disconnected from their schools. Many students were also stranded by buses that ran late or not at all.

"Emerging national studies have documented a rise in student anxiety, disconnection, and other mental health concerns that could lead youth to disengage with school and perhaps drop out entirely, especially if the pandemic destabilized their family and made district outreach difficult," the researchers wrote.

A Stanford University study found that youth assessed in the two years after the onset of the pandemic showed more severe mental health problems and advanced brain aging, as compared to youth assessed before the pandemic.

In the most recent state data, about 52% of Wisconsin high school students surveyed in fall 2021 said that in the past year they had significant problems with feeling very anxious, nervous, tense, scared or like something bad was going to happen.

Most high school students surveyed also said they knew at least one person who was hospitalized or killed by COVID. Nearly a quarter of students saw adults in their homes lose jobs, and half of the students worked jobs during the pandemic.

School districts have called on state lawmakers for more resources to engage students, particularly as federal pandemic relief funds will expire, but state lawmakers have not provided public schools with funding to allowances to even keep up with inflation.

Researchers did point to one program they said has helped and could continue to help: ENGAGE Wisconsin. State lawmakers used $5 million of pandemic relief funds to contract with Graduation Alliance to support chronically absent students in school districts that opt into it.

Since May, school districts have recommended over 18,000 students for the program, and 4,000 of them have chosen to participate. The students get paired with coaches who encourage them to keep up with schoolwork, offer study tips, share information about college application processes and refer them to other resources. Families can sign up at registerwi.graduationalliance.com.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Policy Forum report: students missing from enrollment data since COVID