When Enrollment Drops: A Magnet School Strategy for Districts Committed to Excellence, Equity, and Diversity
Resources → When Enrollment Drops: A Magnet School Strategy for Districts Committed to Excellence, Equity, and Diversity
This brief offers district leaders an alternative to school consolidation: Protecting schools in high-poverty neighborhoods from closure and instead increasing enrollment by transforming them into innovative, theme-based, and diverse whole-school magnet programs.
Many states and districts across the country are facing declining student enrollment, and with it, declining per pupil funding from state and federal revenue sources. They are simultaneously experiencing the “fiscal cliff” that occurred when billions of dollars in federal Covid-relief funding ran out in 2024. This is a difficult time for those whose job it is to balance a school district’s budget.
Districts often turn to school consolidations / closures in times of financial stress. Often described as “consolidation” by district leaders, they are felt and described as “closures” by communities, educators, and students.
While consolidation can increase access to resources and opportunities otherwise not available to students in under-enrolled schools, they do not always save as much money as hoped, and the underlying school closures disproportionately hurt students of color (especially Black students) and students living in poverty.
This brief offers district leaders a different approach: protecting schools in high-poverty neighborhoods from closure and instead increasing enrollment by transforming them into innovative, theme-based, and diverse whole-school magnet programs that serve all neighborhood students as well as attracting others from across the district.
