Andover Kindergarten Enrollment Dropped Nearly 8% Last Year

ANDOVER, MA — Andover public school enrollment dropped significantly from the 2019-2020 school year to the 2020-2021 year, with the biggest drops coming in the youngest grades.

The trend in Andover reflects the pattern across much of the country, according to enrollment data collected by researchers at Stanford University.

With the district's schools operating under a hybrid learning model for much of the school year, it appears many parents of young students chose not to send their children to local public schools — opting instead for private school, homeschooling or other options.

Nationwide, kindergarten enrollment dropped nearly 10 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2020, the New York Times reported.

In Andover, the decline was smaller: the district went from 340 kindergarten students in 2019-2020 to 313 in the following, an 8 percent fall.

Andover also reported even larger drops in first grade and pre-kindergarten enrollment.

Did you take your children out of public school, or choose not to enroll them, last year? Patch would love to hear from you. Contact Christopher Huffaker at chris.huffaker@patch.com.

Overall, district enrollment dropped from 5,856 students to 5,574 last year, the lowest number since at least 2015.

Enrollment data for the 2021-2022 school year will not be available until October, a district spokesperson said.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com. Disclosure: The author's sister is part of the Stanford team that collected the data for this story.