New York City school officials and local lawmakers on Tuesday warned of the potential for service and program cuts tied to enrollment declines at schools across the Big Apple.
“One of the problems with an under-enrolled school is it’s very, very difficult to provide a full slate of services and programming for students when you’re under-enrolled,” First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg from the Department of Education told lawmakers.
“So we want to get the enrollment in those schools back up as much as possible, at the same time holding the line on class size,” said Weisberg.
Weisberg’s comments came as he and Chancellor David Banks spoke about the massive $31-billion allocation for schools, which makes up 31 percent of the executive budget.
While student counts have plummeted over the last few years, funding tied to enrollment was held steady for the pandemic. But that ends this year, leading some schools to brace for changes.
Roughly 120,000 students and families have left city schools over the last five years, according to the DOE, which will allocate some federal funds the next two school years to soften the blow of budget drops.
“I’m visiting these schools every day, and this is what they’re freaked about,” said Council Member Lincoln Restler, whose district spans from Boerum Hill to Greenpoint.
“This is what my elementary schools and my middle schools are just unnerved about what it’s going to mean for them next year,” he said. “They were planning to bring on a librarian or they were planning to do other things, but they’re now feeling like they’re going to be totally screwed by this peg or reduction.”
Meanwhile, some families and educators have benefited from the enrollment declines, which have led to smaller class sizes in some public schools as students returned to learning in-person.
Class sizes have reduced this past year by over 6 percent, DOE officials told local lawmakers.
“When you have seen enrollment dropped pretty significantly, the number of teachers has not dropped — in fact, it’s increased,” said Weisberg. “And so we do have lots of students that are getting more personalized experience, more personalized attention because of that.”
“This is going to be the challenge, I would say, but I feel very confident we’re going to be able to meet it,” he said.
Schools have yet to receive their individual budget allocations — the formula for which was rejected by the city’s Panel for Educational Policy last month, sparking fears those financial breakdowns could be delayed until the summer.
Lindsay Oates, the chief financial officer at the DOE, told the City Council on Tuesday they hope to get numbers to schools within the next few weeks.