As if our county boards of education did not have enough to worry about, a recent report by The Reason Foundation suggests a trend may present big challenges for West Virginia public schools.

In a look at public school enrollment across the country, the foundation said West Virginia was one of only four states with public school enrollment that decreased by more than 5% between fiscal years 2020 and 2024. Certainly, the COVID-19 pandemic had something to do with that, but the Mountain State has not bounced back.

At the beginning of FY2020, West Virginia had 263,485 students enrolled in public schools. By FY 2024, that number had dropped to 246,883 — 16,603 students lost. Even at the end of the four-year period studied, the state saw a 1.7% decline in enrollment between 2023 and 2024.

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