Monterey County schools continue to struggle with declining enrollment

MONTEREY >> For the seventh consecutive year, California schools are seeing a continued decline in enrollment and Monterey County is no exception. State-wide, districts are struggling to return to pre-pandemic numbers.

The state’s Department of Education released annual enrollment data in May, which showed that while enrollment decline is slowing, it’s still a continued pattern throughout the state. During the 2023-24 school year, nearly 15,000 students were no longer enrolled.

Research from the Public Policy Institute of California points to declining birth rates and steady migration to other, less expensive states as an explanation for the decline. The two largest districts in Monterey County, Salinas Union High School District and Monterey Peninsula Unified School District are also struggling to keep enrollment up.

According to the institute, more and more families are flocking inland to the Central Valley, which saw a 3.1% growth in enrollment.

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh said one of the challenges of keeping enrollment up is the exodus of young families to less expensive regions to live. (Monterey Herald file).

“I think (declining enrollment) has little to do with education and all to do with cost of living,” said Monterey Peninsula Unified Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh. “What we hear from our parents is it’s simply too difficult to make it on the Peninsula given the cost of housing in particular, but also health insurance … what you see is a lot of people moving inland where it’s more affordable.”

Monterey Peninsula Unified has seen first-hand how declining enrollment can affect a district. Diffenbaugh says not only is the district struggling with the same decline in enrollment as others, but it’s also struggling with daily average attendance which is directly tied to district funding.

Pre-pandemic, the district had a 95% attendance average per day, now that average is at around 92%. This 3% drop means millions of dollars of funding lost, according to Diffenbaugh.

The county as a whole has also been struggling with chronic absenteeism following the pandemic, according to County Superintendent of Schools Deneen Guss. In the past few years, various districts have come together to create a Community of Practice, an initiative that works to understand the causes of absenteeism and how to address it. According to Guss, the practice “saw tremendous results,” and led to the county doing better than the state average in terms of chronic absenteeism rates.

While still slowly declining, Salinas Union actually saw an uptick in enrollment directly after the pandemic. In 2019-20, the district had 16,257 students enrolled, according to state data. In the next two years, the district’s numbers rose by 268 students. Since then, however, the district’s numbers have been following suit with the rest of California and are steadily declining.

The state’s data does show a significant increase in the number of students enrolled in transitional kindergarten, a bright spot that might point to increasing enrollment in the future – if families stay in the state. Pre-kindergarten enrollment has doubled since 2021-22 and during the last academic school year was around 150,000 students.

Transitional kindergarten enrollment was up by 2.3% in Monterey County during 2023-24.

“I am very grateful to see this exciting outlook for our earliest learners,” said Tony Thurmond, state superintendent of public instruction in a news release. “This success is what can happen for our students when we effectively engage our families.”

The state has also poured efforts into funding community schools, a strategy that centers the family and provides a plethora of resources to keep families engaged and supported. Multiple districts in the county, including Salinas Union and Monterey Peninsula Unified, have received grants to start creating local partnerships that will directly support families.

Monterey County Office of Education Superintendent of Schools Deneen Guss notes that programs have been started fight to chronic absenteeism in local schools. (Monterey Herald).

“That strategy is a beacon of hope in our county and state,” said Guss. “We’re very hopeful that implementing this framework and initiative will really be a game-changer in our schools.”

Enrollment is projected to continue declining over the next 10 years, which will likely lead to school closures. Monterey Peninsula Unified has already seen the effects of this trend. In 2021, Diffenbaugh announced the district would be closing three schools due to decreased enrollment. Highland and Foothill Elementary schools closed in 2022 with Walter Colton Middle being the latest to close this past school year.

“It’s always hard to close schools,” said Diffenbaugh. “With that said, we did that very strategically and worked closely with families and staff on integration into their new school environments.”

The district expanded La Mesa and Monte Vista schools to accommodate transitional kindergarten through eighth grade and allow space for the new influx of students. It also worked to expand and modernize the Highland campus in Seaside which eventually became home to the Dual Language Academy of the Monterey Peninsula.

“All things considered, we made the best of a challenging situation,” said Diffenbaugh. Both Guss and Diffenbaugh say the only real way to fix enrollment is to first address the high cost of living on the Central Coast.

“If people can’t afford to live in the county … then we’re not going to be able to address declining enrollment,” said Guss.

“We’re at a critical point where everyone realizes how hard it is to live here but we need more action,” said Diffenbaugh. “We’re on our way to becoming a retirement community where only children of wealthy people can live here and that’s not what we want and it’s not what our children deserve.”