Despite a more aggressive approach to reopening amid the pandemic than many public school districts, San Mateo County’s private schools are not attracting a significant amount of new students, according to local education officials.
Spokesman Mike Brown for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which sets policy for the region’s Catholic schools, said the region’s schools have not experienced a notable enrollment uptick among those seeking more permissive reopening approaches.
Private schools throughout San Mateo County have generally worked more quickly to bring students back to campuses than their counterparts in public school systems, which face more structural hurdles to clear before reopening.
To that end, almost 60 private schools have brought students back to campus already or received the requisite approval from education and health officials for plans to reopen. Alternatively, about 10 public school districts have sought the same approval — but only a select few have reopened campuses to students.
The amount of public school systems seeking reopening approval jumped starkly from late September, when only two school districts allowed students back to campus. At that same time, 27 private schools received reopening approval.
While San Mateo County is in the most-restrictive purple tier, only transitional kindergarten through sixth grade can return to campuses. Schools that started in-person learning prior to the tier shift can remain in session.
The issue of reopening has been quite divisive, as many families have urged education officials to allow the return of students but teachers have expressed varying levels of comfort with such plans while COVID-19 case counts continue to rise.
Public school teacher unions have been especially critical of reopening plans in many districts, recently advancing a lobbying effort to allow educators be among the first groups to get the COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the classroom.
And while private schools have been more ambitious to invite students back, many public school districts are not seeing a notable enrollment trend associated with the divergent approaches.
“For every family who wants in-person learning and privates are providing it … there are equally families struggling with finances pushing students into the public schools,” said Don Scatena, director of student services in the San Mateo Union High School District.
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Other local school district officials concurred, noting that any dips in enrollment are generally linked to economic factors as they are reopening policies. Enrollment is also a financial issue for many local school districts, because generally less affluent systems which are not primarily reliant on local property taxes to fill their budget depend on state allocations according to average daily attendance.
There is no centralized clearinghouse for tracking enrollment, said county Office of Education spokeswoman Patricia Love. As a result, districts are generally in charge of reporting their own enrollment trends, and such data is usually tracked more comprehensively at the start of a new school year.
In the San Carlos Elementary School District, spokeswoman Amber Farinha said the district’s enrollment is down about 125 students from expected levels this year. Of those who responded to a survey asking their justification for leaving, she said moving out of the region is cited alongside preference for private schools, charter options or homeschooling.
San Carlos school district officials have been grappling in recent years with declining enrollment, which many have attributed to the rising cost of living locally.
The same can be said for the Redwood City Elementary School District, where spokesman Jorge Quintana said enrollment is down about 800 students from two years previously. While it is not known the degree to which the pandemic drove enrollment trends, Quintana said the struggle of district families to afford living locally has traditionally been a key reason students are leaving.
In the San Bruno Park Elementary School District, where the high cost of living has also been blamed for declining enrollment, Assistant Superintendent Valerie Rogers said about 13% of the 155 students have left the school system in the last year in favor of private school options.
The bigger factor, said Rogers, is that families are continually leaving the district in search of a different locale.
“We have had a total of 155 exits since the pandemic began, with 127 of those occurring on the final day of school, of which 110 are drops to attend another public school outside of San Bruno Park School District, left the state or left the U.S.,” she said.
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