School leaders navigate decline in student enrollment at Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- It's been four years after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is continuing to deal with some of its impacts, including a decline in student enrollment.

"We used to be a district of approximately 12,000 students," chief communications officer Andy Jenks said. "We're now a district of approximately 11,000 students."

Jenks said this year, the district had to make some "difficult decisions," to maintain a level of staffing and service for the current student population.

"This was not some instantaneous decision," Jenks said. "There would come a day where we'd have to make some difficult decisions about positions and people to reorganize our district to better serve 11,000 students."

Several factors are at play, according to Carolina Demography director Nathan Dollar, who delivered a presentation on broader social and demographic changes that are driving that decline to the school board on Wednesday.

"We looked at factors such as fertility, the number of babies that are being born to mothers who are residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, then we looked at migration patterns and then we also looked at the diversification of educational market share," Dollar said.

Dollar said the number of babies being born in Chapel Hill and Carrboro has declined in the past five years and fewer families with young children are moving to the area.

"The other thing that we looked at in the presentation was the increase in charter schools since fiscal year '21," Dollar said. "Private school enrollment has also been on the rise and that's a little bit harder for us to measure because we don't have good data on the county of residence of charter school students. But we know that it's been on the rise and it's likely to continue to increase."

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber president Aaron Nelson said in a statement, "Building more housing is critical to help reverse this trend."

"Parents will continue to choose Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools for their children as we add more homes in the district that meet their needs and budget," Nelson said. "Building more housing is a top priority for The Chamber, local businesses, and local governments. That's why the Chamber supports Chapel Hill's affordable housing bond on this year's ballot and is working to advance aggressive affordable housing solutions across the region."

With fewer school-aged children living in Chapel Hill-Carrboro today, it's unclear for how long the declining enrollment at CHCCS will last, according to Dollar.

"It's something that they should certainly be monitoring," Dollar said. "Knowing when students are leaving the district, where they're going, or are they going to a private school really tracking that data and potentially trying to be more marketing themselves."