Public school enrollment is on the decline nationwide. This decline is sometimes framed as families leaving the traditional public system for private schools or charter schools or even home-schooling. And there is a kernel of truth to that, at least in some parts of the country.

For instance, home-schooling rates rose after the pandemic. Charter schools serve more students nationwide today than at any other time in American history. And private school vouchers have increased enrollment in that school type, at least to a degree, in some areas.

But the enrollment decline in Hamilton Southeastern Schools (HSE) on the north side of Indianapolis is a case of different chicken, different roost. Excuse me while I mix my metaphors, but I think HSE sent up the first of possibly many signal flares to come from what otherwise might be seen as healthy mid-sized districts.

Why Did Hamilton Southeastern Schools Lay Off Staff?

The layoffs within HSE were first reported by WISH-TV, with most details coming from a letter HSE superintendent Matt Kegley sent to HSE families. The layoffs directly affect almost 60 total staff, with 18 of them teachers, all of whom are concentrated in early grades. That’s because, as Kegley noted in his letter, “Enrollment in many of our upper grades remains strong. The decline is most noticeable in the early grades, beginning with kindergarten, where each incoming class has been smaller than previous years.” 

That final phrase is crucial. It’s what makes this case of enrollment decline stand out to me. As IndyStar’s coverage noted, these layoffs follow from the district’s overall enrollment declining by “1,519 students from September 2020 to October 2025.” Again from Kegley’s letter: “HSE is simply graduating larger classes than it is enrolling in kindergarten.”

The thing I found so arresting when I first saw WISH-TV’s coverage is that HSE is one of those districts I’ve often regarded as inherently healthy, stable, and at least semi-insulated from the kind of enrollment pressures more urban districts face.

But in the new age of public school enrollment, where there are just less kids enrolling in Kindergarten every year on the whole, that’s no longer the case. This may be not be the canary in the coal mine. We may already be in the mine.

What Do Public School Enrollment Forecasts Look Like?

I’ll be honest, somewhat bleak. Two years ago, Bellwether put together an in-depth report title “How Student Enrollment Declines Are Affecting Education Budgets, Explained in 10 Figures.” Yes, it’s two years old. But I’ve not seen anything as comprehensive since and have seen no more recent data that might contradict the larger warnings offered in their analysis.

See Figure 2 from their report below.

Predictions for Indiana are actually gentle in comparison to other states, with only about a 1% drop expected overall. But other states could see massive drop offs. Just look at New York, California, New Mexico, Mississippi, or West Virginia on that map.

Big cities seem especially in danger of falling victim to this trend. Per a recent Economist piece, “Across Chicago, between 2010 and 2024, according to census bureau data, the total population aged under 18 declined by 22%. In Los Angeles the figure was 23% and in New York, 12%.” A study on just New York City rang further alarm bells, with predictions of enrollment plunging by as many as “153,000 students during the next decade,” as reported by the New York Times.

Why are Enrollment Projections So Bleak Nationwide?

Back to the Bellwether study and the great big question of why. As I alluded to above, many factors are at play. Bellwether explores them all, but they did zero hedging about the main cause: “The primary factor affecting declining school enrollment is a reduction in the U.S. birth rate, which means fewer children are in communities to begin with.”

Indiana, according to Bellwether’s data gathering, had a birthrate of -7.1% between the years 2014-2024. This is going to catch up to us. It seems to be catching up to HSE already as they see fewer and fewer kids enrolling in Kindergarten even as their upper grades remain stable. Eventually, our public schools are just going to be serving less kids overall regardless of any nearby competition from private schools or charter schools.

There’s no way around it. Indeed, no sooner did I have a first draft of this whipped up than another alarmist article ran in the New York Time titled “U.S. Schools Face a Crisis as the Number of Children Drops.”

There’s only a way through it. That road may be rocky, but it doesn’t have to crash the car altogether. To avoid that, though, we have to see what’s coming and plan (and act!) accordingly.

On this point, Indianapolis may be ahead of the curve in establishing the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation. Indeed, this new body is in an ideal position to lead on many of the “what can we do?” recommendations in that Bellwether report.

What’s happening in HSE offers a wake-up call. Communities need to not squander the rapidly-closing window they have to be proactive. After all, there’s still a lot of students out there depending on adults to navigate these upcoming choppy waters as best as we are able. Even if there’s a few less than years prior.