Pasco Sees Large Jump in Transfer, Home School Numbers
We've been taking a look at the impact home schooling seems to be having on various area school districts, today we have some numbers for Pasco.
Richland has 447 fewer students than was planned for, Kennewick has 527. KSD also reports 647 Declarations of Intent for home schooling. That means for this year, 2020-2021 647 parents-students are withdrawing and schooling at home. Last year that number was 310.
We have not yet obtained data showing how many of these in RSD and KSD have transferred to other schools in our area.
Pasco reported to us the following information, per Communications/PR Director Shane Edinger:
"Since the start of the 2020-21 school year:
137 students who were previously enrolled in PSD transferred out on a Choice transfer to another school district.
189 students who were previously enrolled in PSD transferred out with an Intent to Homeschool form."
That is a total of 327 students who have left the District since the beginning of the school year this fall.
By comparison, those numbers were 60 for Choice Transfers in 2019-2020, and 16 did a Intent to Homeschool Form. That's a total of 76, so the District has seen a jump of 251 students leave this year.
That represents a 330% percent increase over 2019-2020.
It is not known how many of the 137 this year are in private schools, or others, in our area.
Most of the students, from the feedback we have heard from a variety of credible sources, is due to dissastifaction or issues with the current distance learning programs. Other parents are frustrated with what they believe is a lack of coherent or since plans and effort to get students back to at least hybrid in-class learning.