America's missing kids: Amid COVID and online school, thousands of students haven't shown up

With urban schools starting online because of COVID, many students aren't showing up.

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As parents nationwide tread through a wildly different education landscape this year, many, like the Ludtke sisters, are disappearing from the rosters of their local public schools.

It's a similar story in many other large districts that started the year with all children learning virtually: Dallas, Austin, Los Angeles, Nashville, Miami and Broward County schools in Florida are all reporting enrollment declines and missing large swaths of children in the youngest grades.

31 file photo, Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho leans over to greet students remotely during a visit to Vanessa Acosta's first grade class at the Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Fla. (Photo: Carl Juste, Miami Herald via AP).

Higher-income parents, meanwhile, have the means to explore other options, such as homeschooling, joining a learning pod with a privately hired teacher, or enrolling in private school.

In poorer neighborhoods, larger percentages of children showed up to their zoned schools for virtual learning, Ludtke said.

About 74% of the country's 100 largest school systems chose to start the year with all-remote learning, according to Education Week magazine.

When Las Vegas parent Melissa Ruiz heard Clark County would start the year with remote learning, she quickly called private schools opening with in-person instruction to see if they had space for her 5-year-old son.

Ruiz, 29, said the price tag for tuition is steep: $1,000 per month. But her son is learning a lot, she said, and she may keep him in private school if she can continue to afford it.

In Los Angeles — one of the first school systems this summer to announce it would start the year with remote instruction because of a surge of local infections — kindergarten enrollment is down about 6,000 students, or 14%, from last year, according to the district. In previous years, L.A.'s kindergarten enrollment dropped by about 2,000 students each fall.

"We suspect some of this is because families may lack the ability to provide full-time support at home for online learning, which is necessary for very young learners," he said at the end of August.

In Arizona, Mesa Public Schools, the state’s largest school system, started the year online with about 1,000 fewer students than last year, according to district data.

Austin schools prepared to reopen in person, but instead started school online in September. (Photo: LOLA GOMEZ / AMERICAN-STATESMAN).

But this year, enrollment dropped by 7%, to about 141,000 students, said Superintendent Michael Hinojosa. Schools are missing about 34% of prekindergarten students, but only 2% of high school students, he said.

In South Central Los Angeles, Principal Cynthia Gonzalez expected to have 515 high school students this year, but only 503 showed up. .

Families switching to new schools in pursuit of in-person instruction have driven up enrollment in some private schools and smaller districts outside of metro areas. .

In and around Boston, Catholic schools that reopened for face-to-face instruction have gained 4,074 new students this year, mostly from local public schools that opened remotely, said Thomas W.

"When the news hit that Boston Public Schools was going to start virtually, our phones across 100 schools didn't stop ringing," Carroll said.

UPDATE: The Catholic schools of the Boston Archdiocese have gained a record 4,074 students since mid-July, with total enrollment now 30,906.

To be sure, the archdiocese' schools lost about 5,000 students in the spring when families could not afford tuition amid the financial uncertainties of the pandemic, Carroll said.

It's too early to know the official enrollment count this year in New York City Public Schools

The district has delayed the start of school twice and won't welcome back middle- and high school students for some in-person instruction until Oct

But on Long Island, the Mattituck-Cutchogue school district has received 10 or 15 new students from the city's public schools, said Superintendent Jill Gierasch

Typically, Mattituck-Cutchogue sees a decline in enrollment every year, Gierasch said

When enrollment is declining, Gierasch said, you can't always perfectly match expenses to the number of students coming to school