(Updated/Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Education annual report showed the first drop in school enrollment in ten years. Department spokesman, Jay Pennington, says the biggest drop came among the youngest students.  “The largest losses in terms of grade level enrollment are really happening in post-kindergarten or kindergarten. So those who are involved in statewide pre-school programs as well as those enrolling in kindergarten,” Pennington says.

He says there was some drop after the early programs. “We do a see a decline overall in elementary — so sort of through six grade — which is into the middle school years. At the same time, high school saw an increase,” he says. Pennington doesn’t see this as a long-term trend. “We’ll certainly after a nice steady ten years of increase it’s unfortunate that we are having a decline. Certainly enrollment this fall is an anomaly and we would expect to get back to continued increases,” according to Pennington.

Pennington says they don’t know exactly what caused the decrease — though it appears parents of some of the kids in the pre-k and kindergarten programs decided not to enroll them this year. He says pandemic could play a role and it is not certain how soon things would turn back to an increase in enrollment. “It is going to take one year or two years — it’s really difficult to say — I think depending on the health and safety situation that we see in the fall of ’21 will certainly dictate what people decide to do in terms of seeing the increases in those pre-k and kindergarten programs that saw deep declines in 2020,” Pennington says.

Pennington says while overall enrollment declined, there was an increase in diversity. “We’re continuing to show a higher percentage of student who are students of color and a decrease in white student population. So, even though there was a decline in population overall — the diversity of our student population — that trend continues,” he says. Certified enrollment decreased at 215 school districts representing 66 percent of all public school districts in the state. Des Moines Public Schools had the largest decrease followed by Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Iowa City, Council Bluffs, Waterloo, Sioux City, Dubuque, Burlington and West Des Moines.