Prince George’s County public schools have lost more students over the past eight years than any other Washington suburban system, averaging an enrollment decline of more than 1,000 students a year.
At its peak, the county had 137,285 students in the 2003-04 school year and was struggling with crowded campuses. Now, enrollment stands at 123,833. The drop amounts to more than 13,400 students, nearly 10 percent.
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Most school systems in Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs are stable or growing. None has had such a large decline.
Meanwhile, the number of Prince George’s students from families poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price meals has risen from nearly 56,000 in 2008 to almost 67,000 this year, an increase of almost 20 percent.
“It is a problem,” Christian Rhodes, education liaison for County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), said of the enrollment decline in an interview this month. “It is an extremely big issue for us, one that we are not taking lightly. When we lose students, we lose our ability to be competitive with our neighbors for education dollars, economic development and quality of life.”
In recent years, Prince George’s has made considerable progress in state test scores. But the system has been plagued by a history of low achievement in many schools, political infighting and rapid leadership turnover.
Prince George’s school officials are seeking to reverse the enrollment trend by offering parents more choice, building community partnerships and improving the overall quality of education. The system remains the third-largest in the Washington area.
But the largest system, Fairfax County, has added more than 13,000 students in the past eight years, reaching an enrollment of 177,606. Montgomery County, the second-largest, gained more than 7,000 and now has 146,976 students.
Enrollment in the D.C. Public Schools is sharply down since 2003-04, with many students moving to independent public charter schools. But the D.C. system’s enrollment has stabilized in recent years, and the city’s total public enrollment, counting charter schools, has risen by more than 1,600 students since 2003-04, to 76,753.
In Prince George’s, a number of factors contribute to the hemorrhaging, including the foreclosure crisis, private and parochial school attendance and mistrust of the school system. There are also fewer families with school-age children in the county.
What frustrates officials is they have no control over one large reason for the decline: the housing market.
“A lot of the people who have been in foreclosure have moved, whether they have moved out of the county or moved with family in other areas,” said Bea Tignor, a former school board member.
The share of vacant housing units jumped from 5.2 percent in 2000 to 7.4 percent in 2010, according to the county Planning Department.
In 2010, Prince George’s had 11,810 foreclosure filings, more than any other jurisdiction in Maryland. And so far this year, the county continues to account for about a third of the state’s foreclosures.
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