Arkansas public school enrollment recently reached its lowest level in at least 20 years. That's bringing challenges for district funding, staffing and educational programs. Education leaders cite economic pressures, immigration policy and the state's voucher program as potential causes. Ozarks at Large's Casey Mann spoke to Northwest Arkansas superintendents and education advocates about what this shift might mean for the future of Arkansas public education.
This school year in Arkansas may look just like any other. Buses still run, bells still ring, and kids stream in and out of classrooms. However, the numbers behind Arkansas public education are shifting. According to data from the Arkansas Department of Education, public school enrollment across the state has dropped to just over 465,000 students — the lowest total in at least two decades. In 2023, enrollment was sitting above 475,000 students. That's a drop of nearly 10,000 students over three school years.
So what's driving this decline? According to school district superintendents in Northwest Arkansas, the answer is complicated.
"About 60% of our students are free and reduced lunch, and so that correlates with their income levels. The median price of a house now is exponentially more than it was four years ago."
That was Rogers School District Superintendent Jeff Perry.
In Perry's district, enrollment has dropped by almost 600 students since 2023. He says one contributing factor is the availability of affordable housing for families.
"The housing market has squeezed some of our families out to other areas of the state where the housing market may not be as expensive."
Rogers School District is also home to a large number of Hispanic students, and Perry says that because of this, recent immigration restrictions across the state have contributed to stifled enrollment.
"We have about 52% or so of our student body who are Hispanic. That was an area that was growing. And now it's a situation where the number of students that we had coming in to replace some students that were leaving — for whatever reason — that number has decreased."
While Rogers adjusts to enrollment decline, about 20 minutes down the road, classrooms in Bentonville are filling up. The district added roughly 370 students in the past year, and Superintendent Debbie Jones says the area's economic growth plays a big part in that. But she's still concerned about wider enrollment trends across Northwest Arkansas — and she says she thinks the state's voucher program is part of the reason public schools are seeing a sharp enrollment decline.
"I always worry. I think that's a part of the job. But I don't think that we have to guess: Will it have a financial impact? We've seen in a couple of short years of the program that it does have a financial impact on school districts."
Arkansas launched the Education Freedom Account program through the LEARNS Act in 2023. It allows families to receive about 90% of what a public school would get per student to pay for private schooling or homeschooling. The voucher program was phased in over three years, and the 2025-2026 school year marks the first time that participation was limited by available funding, rather than by set limits on student approvals. When the program launched in 2023, state officials limited participation to about 6,000 students, or 1.5% of the previous year's public school enrollment, before expanding it to 3% the following year.
Jones says that along with schools losing funding, one of her biggest worries with the voucher program has to do with the quality of education students might receive after leaving the public school system.
"I want to be clear — not all homeschool instructors are bad. There are high-quality private schools out there. I personally believe families should have choice. But I also believe there have to be accountability measures in place, because I know that there are cases where families may feel that their child's getting a good education in a private setting or in a homeschool setting, only to find out two years down the road, when they should be going into third grade, they can't read. They then will return to public school, and then we're charged with getting those kids on grade level. And it's much, much more difficult when you've lost that time."
Only about 19% of voucher recipients since 2023 used the program to switch from public to private or homeschooling, but it adds to the pressure school districts are already feeling.
Mann: Have you talked to any other superintendents from neighboring school districts about the effect that losing students is having on them?
"I talked to them today, and one said that he is laying off — it was 42 or 45 teachers — through attrition, not rehiring next year. Others are having significant impact, especially where they are losing a significant number of students."
Arkansas school districts receive roughly $8,000 per student in state funding. So when enrollment drops, so does revenue. According to the nonprofit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, state law provides districts with declining enrollment a partial funding buffer. Districts can receive a fraction of the per-pupil funding they lost, but only for up to two years.
April Reisma is a special education teacher and president of the Arkansas Education Association, an organization made up of teachers, education support professionals, students and public education advocates. She says the state's voucher program exacerbates an already existing problem of inadequate public school funding — and that even if only 19% of students who use the vouchers come from public schools, it still significantly impacts some districts.
"You need to think about rural schools as well. With declining numbers, even just a small decline might push them over the edge into being in some sort of fiscal distress and being on the verge of closing — or having to consolidate with another school."
Perry says financial solutions like staff cuts are often complicated.
"A lot of folks would think, well, if you lost 100 students, you could reduce two or three teachers and that would kind of even out. But the problem is those students don't all go to the same school. They're not all in the same grade. And so you can't always just reduce a teacher because you've lost students across the entire district."
In Rogers, rising property values have helped soften the blow. Higher assessments have brought in supplemental local revenue, but Perry says that without that cushion, the enrollment losses could have been financially devastating.
Reisma says that while she does not doubt that the voucher program has helped some families in need of assistance, it largely functions as a discount for those who could already afford to send their children to private school.
"First year, it was 95% of the folks that took the vouchers were already attending private school. So they were not people that needed a hand up. They were people that just got a coupon. It was a coupon for the wealthy, let's be honest. And it continues to be so, even though that number has gone down slightly."
She said that when these affluent students leave public school districts, it negatively affects schools overall.
"When those students that are more from affluent families leaving the school district, there's a direct correlation with a person in a low socioeconomic situation and having lower test scores, and that's going to affect the school overall for sure.
As students leave, teacher workloads change, too.
"It sounds like the opposite, right? If you have less students, you're going to have smaller class sizes. That's not true. You're going to have less teachers. And so they're going to put students together and make larger class sizes, which in turn makes it very difficult for a teacher to be able to teach efficiently and to the best of their ability."
For some Arkansas schools, fewer students means compromising on staff and student experiences. And as families weigh their options, districts are left balancing budgets and trying to maintain high standards of education.
"As you lose money, you have to cut something. And fortunately, we're not in that situation. But many times those may be programs. Schools offer far more than what is required. But there's a reason we offer all of these — orchestra and band and all the athletics and all the different career pathways."
According to the most recent Arkansas EFA annual report, the state estimated that the program would cost about $277 million for the 2025-2026 school year. However, in January, lawmakers approved another $32 million for the program, bringing the state's total cost to about $309 million.
For Ozarks at Large, I'm Casey Mann.
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