New Hampshire public schools see continued enrollment decline

Enrollment in public schools in the Monadnock Region and statewide dropped again this year, continuing a trend attributable in part to declining birth rates, according to the N.H. Department of Education.

“According to the new data, there are now 160,323 students enrolled in New Hampshire public and public charter schools compared to 162,660 at the start of the 2024-2025 school year,” the department said in a news release.

“For comparison, there were more than 205,000 students enrolled in New Hampshire public and public charter schools 20 years ago during the 2005-2006 school year.”

Enrollment in the Keene School District dropped from 3,395 in 2011 to 2,941 this year. The Peterborough-based ConVal School District saw a drop from 2,497 to 1,862 in that same period. The Monadnock Regional School District, based in Swanzey, fell from 1,906 to 1,572.

The Fall Mountain Regional School District went from 1,651 to 1,332, while the Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District dropped from 1,571 to 1,088.

Superintendents from N.H. School Administrative Unit 29 and the ConVal and Monadnock districts didn’t immediately return requests for comment Wednesday.

The state education department’s news release noted that birth rates in the state have fallen from about 14,000 annually in the early 2000s to roughly 11,000 to 12,000 annually at present.

Despite declining enrollment, overall school spending has increased over the past two decades, with local property taxpayers picking up most of the tab. Some residents complain that school districts aren’t doing enough to rein in expenditures.

State Sen. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said in a post on X Tuesday that projections indicate the state will see yearly 1 percent declines in enrollment for at least the next 10 years.

“If your school district isn’t talking about how that translates to school operations budget cost reductions, you can expect your local school property taxes to continue to increase,” he said.

Commissioner of Education Caitlin D. Davis said school districts should take declining enrollment into consideration when drawing up spending plans.

“New Hampshire’s public schools are navigating a continued decline in student enrollment,” she said in the release. “These shifts may require school districts to make thoughtful adjustments as they work to prepare and finalize their budgets in March for the next school year.”

But Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers-N.H., said that declines in student enrollment don’t necessarily result in spending decreases.

Even with fewer students, schools still have fixed costs such as running school buses and heating classrooms. It is also hard to reduce labor costs when enrollment declines are spread out over many grades.

“Enrollment hasn’t gone down in neat classroom units of 20 or 22 per grade level per school district, so you can’t necessarily reduce your costs evenly in every district,” Howes said.

“It does not work out that you can average it across the state and say, ‘Oh yeah, we can just easily cut money here and cut money there.’ ”

Meanwhile, inflation has driven up costs at a time when schools are being asked to do more than ever before for their students, she noted.

“As enrollment has shrunk, the needs of these students that are in public schools have increased,” she said. “We’re having a greater percentage of students in poverty, a greater percentage of students who have a language other than English spoken in their households, and a greater percentage of students who are identified as having special needs.”

One thing that hasn’t changed, according to Howes, is the state’s heavy reliance on property taxes for funding schools, a system that courts have found violates New Hampshire constitutional requirements that the state provide an adequate education for children.

“We should really be asking, ‘Why isn’t the state doing a better job of supporting student needs?’” Howes said.

A June 4 report from The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy showed inflation-adjusted total expenditures in New Hampshire public schools growing from about $2.8 billion in 2001 to nearly $4.1 billion in 2024, while enrollment dropped by about 50,000 students in that time period.

Rick Green can be reached at 603-352-1234, extension 1435, or rgreen@keenesentinel.com.

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