Bellevue! Where have all the children gone?

14 min readFeb 11, 2023

— They have gone private to local private schools, it seems

To contact your state representatives, scroll to the bottom.

Dear Bellevue School District,

Thank you for the opportunity to speak at the board meeting.

I believe the loss is to private schools and may be temporary. There is an URGENT case to argue up to the state for an extension and more funding. I expand on the issue here and hope to arm you with good arguments backed with data.

My goal here is rapid action!

The district is still in the ‘considering the recommendation’ stage, and not the ‘we have decided for you’ stage, is it not? And so I take you at your word that you care about community input. We must make a best effort, or suffer with our conscience as we face communities that are uprooted.

People (parents, board, and district) should contact their state representatives. The board should remind everyone of their responsibilities to demand representation here.

The state budget closes in April.

There are days left for action.

The case to the State:

The elementary enrollment loss is almost exclusively to private schools (in Bellevue, may elsewhere). This is an equity issue, And also likely a temporary issue. (The major causes of losses to private are gone with COVID and private schools look much less affordable as we exit the COVID financial boom).
I provide evidence below.
The nature of the public school funding formula and the equity issue makes this a state issue.
Private school growth is rapidly creating social segregation. The rich don’t like dropping $25k ($30k?) on private tuition. They do it when their dissatisfaction with public schools exceeds the value of the money they spend. As public school parents become more dissatisfied and unheard (as they presently are becoming), watch out! Learn from COVID and the teaching hours lost. Again, consider the disproportionate effect on education between rich and poor.
As of 2023, private school enrollment is up a shocking 25% since 2019, and 35% in Kindergarten and first grade.
Equity is something that the state says it cares about. Remind the state that voters take a dim view of those promoting equity, and claiming a moral high ground, while at the same time, promoting policy whose actual outcomes undermine it, as the McLeary decision does for Bellevue. This hypocrisy (good intentions vs silence on bad outcomes) is the hot-button issue blighting much of the West-Coast politics. State reps, I am sure, can be motivated by it and wish to avoid it.
Bellevue, I am sure, suffers some of the greatest economic inequity in the state. Talk to the city council — I’m sure they can point to the harms.
Our public schools have served low-income and minority families very well, compared to the rest of the state. Many are ranked high in the state. Some highest in the US.
Working families suffer high rent to school here. And as a consequence of the Bellvue public school system’s success, we have high inward migration and further high rent and home prices. And yet the home taxes that these families pay leave the city, and less comes back to them from the state in education — the net exceeding our shortfall.
I believe the Bellevue district was fully funded with identical enrollment in 2014. We have since added 1 school, but we now cut 3. In effect, we can afford 2 fewer schools today than in 2014. WHY?! It’s possible that program spending has expanded, but I think it is more likely that the McLearly decision and its fallout (local levy caps) are the cause. Although our home prices and taxes have gone up we get back less. Remind the state that these 2 lost schools are unintended consequences of THEIR good intentions, and should now resolve it.
The state, I’m sure, believes Bellevue is rich. But when it comes to operation funding for the school, its not doing great. The cost of living is high - public school families in particular are stretched, cost of living adjustments for staff just don’t cover the cost of living in Bellevue and many staff commute from cheaper areas outside of the district making hiring difficult. Worst of all, city can’t draw on its riches to solves its schooling costs. The effect of the McCleary act has been to create a local eduction funding prohibition. The state does not allow Bellevue to spend local money on local public education. Instead of producing the equity outcomes intended, its has promoted locally unsolvable short-term financial crises, and driven those who can afford it into private schools and is expanding segregation in education along economic boundaries. Indeed BSD argued: (paraphrasing for my own cynical benefit!)

“We can’t consider closing schools in the neighborhoods with large expensive lots — they will go private! (And they will!) If we closed our worst-performing schools we will lose their Title 1 money (and maybe we should consider the option of integrating these families with schools achieving better grade level performance, but we won’t). So now we look to close schools that perform very well, and are well integrated, economically, socially, and racially. These are our recommendations.”

Remind the state that they designed the rules that led to this decision-making, and hamstrings cities from resolving short-term budget shortfalls.
On the specific issue of Title 1 qualification, the state should argue to the Federal government to eliminate the 40% low-income student cap and pay per low-income student. Being one student on the wrong side of a money cliff creates a moral hazard. Let’s not incentivize economic gerrymandering that exists in our school districts! That path to segregation. Instead, prefer incremental funding per low-income student.
The tax-paying population has not declined. If anything tax revenue has increased following home value increases. The state chose not to send that money to schools and reduces the portion of its budget spent on public education as private enrollment grows. Can’t spare a dollar for public elementary school kids? Please!
Other districts are facing the same enrollment shortfall. We should find our allies as we argue up to the state.
Ask the state to extend hold-harmless and provide the needed 10% or so more elementary school funding until enrollment stabilizes. If it cares about equity, as it says, it will also more to ensure that the public is an attractive option or they will answer to the state’s working-class families.

Evidence that the loss is to private schools and is temporary

Where is the evidence that Bellevue is losing its population of children? According to King County demographers, they estimate there has been not population loss of children at any age group:

Population in Bellevue city limits, slightly different to BSD’s, and excludes Medina.

If Bellevue’s public school enrollment is down, but the population of children is not, what does that mean?

The state-provided enrollment figures are clear. I have published a notebook that works end-to-end from the state data and is public and verifiable. I repeat the work of Brandon Adams and come to very similar conclusions. You may find his great work here:
https://mostlywashington.substack.com/p/bellevue-school-district-school-closures

!! These are the figures I’m reviewing — some people have pointed out some possible under-reporting in the private school data reported by the state.
See discussion at the end.

In summary:

Bellevue **public school** enrollment change

Bellevue **private school** enrollment change

BSD lost 2117.
Private gained 1986.

A net loss from Bellevue of just 141 children. And I haven’t accounted for the loss to homeschooling here — likely around this figure.

What of the elementary schools, which we are now closing?
P-3 enrollment, for the school year starting in 2019/20–2021/22:

Bellevue public schools lost 1354, (-19.8%)
Bellevue private schools gained 1282 (+77.6%)

For every 100 lost from the public district, private gained 95.

For K-5 (2019/20–2021/22)

Bellevue public lost: 1143 (-12.7%)
Bellevue private gained: 947 (+58%)

83 were gained by private for every 100 lost to private schools.

I have presented my evidence, based on readily available public data, and published an end-to-end worksheet that any good data scientist can examine, modify and scrutinize. Please — let’s not rely on records requests!

Records requests have nothing to say about the inward migration of families who chose local private schools.
And they have nothing to say about local families entering P/K/1 private schools — and these are BY FAR the largest movers. State data reports private preschool enrollment is up 49% while grade 12 up by just 1%. In the Bellevue slice of that data, P-3 private enrollment is up 77%. Wow!
And they are variously incomplete in the rest.

Is the district assuming that if students left public school they left Bellevue? Is the district assuming that people left the state if they switched to a local private school, or they moved to homeschool, just because no records happen to be requested?

Provide to your data nerds the state data and notebooks that analyze them. https://github.com/stuz5000/WASchoolEnrollment

I encourage their inspection and welcome their criticism.

But on this, so far, the data seems clear:

Bellevue children have not vastly decreased in number. Families have gone private.

Bellevue’s school district administration has not served parents well by failing to speak out on the primary cause of the loss of enrollment. I can see why. Bellevue lost more education hours during COVID than most and drove dissatisfied homeowners to private schools, their pockets lined with home equity, low rates, and cash-out-finance money. Low-income renters? Just a stimmy check for you — it didn’t cover your rent increase. You must stay in public school.
It is a bitter memory. Don’t feel too bad. The story was repeated throughout the US. And parents are seeking healing for the school district.

However, flight to private is a fact. And if we ignore cause and effect, how can choose sound actions?

If the district is arguing that birth rates and housing costs have driven out parents… please present the evidence in a form that permits scrutiny. Provide your data sources and the detailed analysis report, and so much more will we trust that the proposed closures are necessary, correct, and for the good. The district has given me no answers to my claims. It told the press it “can’t confirm them” and all the data is public. Your records request data is not public. Make it public so that we may trust that your reasons are correct, and for the good.

The Bellevue district points to high housing prices. But we look at a Bellevue home market, now in decline (-12.7%, YoY in December, via Redfin), and likely to continue down or stabilize, following the now high mortgage rates.

The district points to layoffs and suggests further decline. But we note that those families have not sold their children and are even more in need of public schooling.

The district pointed to a birthrate decline. We looked at birthrates, but we found Bellevue K/1 enrollment subsequent to King country births uncorrelated. https://mostlywashington.substack.com/p/how-do-births-and-housing-prices

Being a great school district and close to work centers Bellevue likely saw enrollment more strongly driven by inward working-family migration, which has been a prevailing trend for decades. Perhaps this overwhelms birthrates. Perhaps a Colorado demographer may have overlooked some local causal factors.

We looked at the monthly OSPI monthly school headcounts for Phantom Lake Elementary. During-school-year (month-to-month) headcounts only result from migration flow and public/private transfer. For Bellevue, headcounts have historically trended upward during the school year, in all years except during COVID. Indeed, this trend has now returned in 2022/23. (** At least it so for PLE — perhaps it is worth re-examining for the district, however, I don’t see this data in bulk form).

We observe the loss in enrollment disproportionately seen in major West Coast cities (e.g. Seattle, SF) whose population also fled to the suburbs, and wonder what consequence this had for the migration of children under 5 and who are not yet enrolled and so are invisible to the district, and the consequence on future enrollment. Did they come to Bellevue — is this in part what drove home prices up? Certainly, a city could know, if it cared to look.

The district pointed to families moving to the major new construction zones downtown and along the BelRed corridor and argued that they are unexpectedly childless. Again, we wonder if this is a fact, or whether those families have simply chosen private schools or, being condos, are more attractive to younger families who simply have children too young to be enrolled in any school, and so also are invisible to the district.
The district points to declining King County birth rates (which mirror trends in the US). But when we now look at very recent birthrate reports in the general US we see the ‘COVID bump’, and birth rates are back to 2018 levels.

https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/our-work/working-papers/2022/wp-22-43.html

On work-from-home, again, trends have slowed or reversed, and we see those fearing layoffs downtown, or looking for new work, or security, preferring to be close to work. Where is the evidence of a net loss of children from Bellevue? Certainly, families fled inner cities — the outdoor space and backyards of the suburbs of Bellevue and good quality schools (public and private) sure did look nice to my family. That is why we moved here from San Francisco.

The district argues that millennials are more childless, but that does not mean a decline in taxpayers or tax revenue. In fact taxes have ballooned as they have followed property valuations. You might think: “Great! More money per student”. We note that these ‘assumed childless’ are the beneficiaries of an education also and we should not assume that they are unsupportive of expanding the state’s per-student share of public education funding simply by keeping total education at a fixed % of the budget. And why not? The adult tax-paying population did not decline.

The district points out that high housing costs have caused flight from Bellevue. High housing costs are absolutely cause for concern. But stop for a moment. Are you arguing these wealthy new homebuyers (many boomers whose children have long since graduated college) are more childless than those that are leaving? Really? Where is the evidence? Are vast numbers of homes sitting empty? Or childless? Is it not that new homeowners are simply richer (I too point to the price of housing!), and so more likely to be able to afford private school? Is it not that they suffer those high home prices precisely because Bellevue is a highly regarded school district, and so they have young children too?

Put together, when the district points to its 10-year model to say that the sky is falling, I treat it with suspicion, and point to the evidence:

the enrollment population loss has been to private schools. They have greatly expanded in number, and in particular private has expanded in lower grades where public has lost the most.
COVID is waning, the economy is trending down, private school is looking less affordable, and birth rates (we may soon see reported in Bellevue) are trending up.
there is much that seems assumed (such as childlessness in new housing, and the causes of loss in lower grades that have few records transfer requests), perhaps back-fitted and sought to support a position.
there is much that seems measurable, but unmeasured, such as the not-yet-enrolled population (such as the unenrolled population).

In assuming continued enrollment loss based on the district’s 10-year model, I urge caution.

Instead of running to close schools, follow Seattle. Wait and see where enrollment is coming out of COVID. Wait another year or two and ask the state for funds to help maintain facilities and staff continuity, and avoid the harms of hastily uprooting children and severing communities. Or close one school instead of 3.

Ask the state for a funding formula that is more forward-looking, and not so sensitive to short-term ups and downs.

Ask the state for help. The state has assumed total financial responsibility for public schools - this is the state’s problem now.

Regards,

Stuart Reynolds, PhD

State Underreporting of Private Enrollment?

Some people note that the state private enrollment data is incomplete — the state data reports that some schools report 0 students, while they actually do have students. Could this reduce the net loss to private? Well, yes. But wait! Let's discuss with an example …

The state recently published the private enrollment for 22/23: https://www.sbe.wa.gov/our-work/private-schools#Private%20School%20Enrollment

The total change in private enrollment for

2021/22 (+14,477, +16.67% since 2019),
2022/23 (+20,264, +27.53% since 2019),

Change in (reported) private enrollment in Washington state.

… suggesting that private really is still growing (oh no!) but at a lesser rate (yay!).

I guess it’s possible that underreporting from privates caused this. But to change the interpretation of results, the way underreporting occurred would need to be different year to year, in particular, more underreported in 2019 than ‘21,’22, and this would need to be true generally for the state.
<<squints with suspicion>>… maybe

But there is an absence of by-year underreporting bias, it is likely that the change estimate is actually underestimated — if the non-reporters behave like those private schools reporting results, the transfer to private is likely to look even larger.

Also, note that WA private enrollment growth in P/K/1 is much larger than in higher grades:

+49% for preschool, (2019 →2022)
+34% for K,
+38% for 1st grade, but just …
+1.6% for 12th grade which has seen only +68 students. Wow!

So when the district points to public enrollment loss being larger in lower grades, I say, “Look, see! Larger growth in private in lower grades!” Again…

I guess it is possible there’s also something in the way lower grades specifically might under-report enrollment in a way that’s different from higher ones.
<<squints with suspicion>>

Check for yourself (I encourage it) — I’ve been known to make a few mistakes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JQuxNpw1w9o-xXZu3IPKPc21Dmv-rin-jiaOBGOz93I/edit?usp=sharing
The ’23 sum of the 81959 in the state data is wrong on their website (corrected in my spreadsheet).

The Bellevue district relies on records requests from new schools. It sure would be nice to know how complete those are. But to be honest, I don’t expect many records requests for P/K/1 grades (since those students don’t have much in the way of school records). So … 🤷 I don’t see how they could use it to say what’s happening for P/K/1. Additionally, Bellevue receives no records transfers when a family leaves the district and an new family moves in who goes private.

I’m in the process of cleaning the data more to try to quantity under-reporting. Let’s see.