Mesa Public Schools’ budget, enrollment are declining

By Connor Van Ligten
Mail

In fiscal year 2023, the total aggregate school district budget limit for Mesa Public Schools was $812,628,626. In fiscal year 2025, that number has gone down to $672,169,500, according to statistics from the Mesa Public Schools website.

It’s not just the budget that is going down. In the 2022-23 school year, 57,900 students were enrolled in the district. The 2023-24 school year had 57,061 students in attendance, according to data from the Arizona Department of Education.

The incoming school district superintendent and two school board members explain why this downward trend is occurring and what can be done to reverse the trend.

According to incoming superintendent Dr. Matthew Strom, one of the main reasons for the reduction in budget is the release of federal COVID-19 funds, which the district no longer receives, and has spent through most of. But a decline in student enrollment across the district is directly connected to the budget too. Strom said that the state funding the district receives is typically based on enrollment.

“The biggest difference between three years ago and now is that there’s not been any further federal relief packages that have kept pace with those that were established in 2020 and 2021,” Strom said. “The second biggest factor is student enrollment, which drives what funding we get from a state level.”

The easiest way to gauge a decline in enrollment, according to Strom, is to compare the amount of graduating high schoolers in a given school year to the amount of new kindergartners coming into the district that same year. Strom said that if the amount of new kindergartners is less than the amount of seniors graduating, that means enrollment is declining overall.

“We graduated about 4,400 students this year. Our kindergarten class is only supposed to be about 3,400 kids,” Strom said. “So right away when you’re graduating 1,000 more kids than you’re bringing in, you’re gonna be in declining enrollment because of that.”

Why enrollment is declining is a question that does not have a singular, clear answer. Lacy Chaffee, a board member at Mesa Public Schools and former student of the district herself, said.

High cost of living among young families moving into Mesa, declining birth rates and the increasing prominence of school choice were all factors Chaffee pointed toward for why enrollment is decreasing.

“I think it has been harder for young families to move into Mesa and all of that has impacted our public schools and all of our schools. Many places in the country we are seeing a decline in enrollment that aligns with birth rates,” Chaffee said. “We are seeing school choice impact Mesa in a way that it hasn’t as much in the past. In the past, about 75% of students have chosen to attend Mesa public schools, and we’re seeing that number decline.”

The fewer students enrolled, the less funding the district gets, Chaffee explained.

“Our school districts are funded based on ADM, or average daily membership, which is the number of students who are enrolled in our district for the first 100 days,” Chaffee said. “If your child is enrolled in the full first 100 days, we get the full amount of funding equivalent to that student. If they’re only enrolled in it partially, we get a partial amount. If they join our district after 100 days, we get no money for those students.”

A decreased budget means adjustments and cuts have to be made. Those tough decisions may result in certain teachers or staff workers getting laid off in order to save money, especially if those classroom sizes dwindle or specific programs don’t have enough students participating to justify the teacher contract for it, according to Chaffee.

“For example, if we have an electric string program at one of our high schools, but it only has a dozen students, even though all of those students deserve to take that class, it makes it really difficult for us to pay a staff member for that specialized course,” Chaffee said.

MPS Board President Courtney Davis said the district and board tries to protect the jobs of teachers as much as possible from getting their positions cut.

“We want to protect those teachers as much as possible so we’re not having huge class sizes, because that’s tough for everyone,” Davis said. “So as we’re making cuts, we are making sure that we are strategic in how we do it and that we’re not impacting our teachers and putting more and more work on them.”

Davis said that more funding could help address this issue.

“The state of Arizona isn’t known for funding public education, I would like to see us move up in that rank as far as funding public education, and then we can add more or smaller class sizes that would be less of a strain on our teachers,” Davis said.

Strom said the district often counts on budget overrides and local taxpayer money to fund the district. To ensure members of the community have a greater incentive to support these overrides and get more funds for the district, and also to increase enrollment, Strom wants to position Mesa Public Schools as a district with a wide-range of educational options that lets parents find the exact learning experience they want for their kids.

“We continue to offer a well-rounded education to all kids,” Strom said. “We need to continue to get the message out there that you can learn much more than just math and such here in these public schools. We have great science, art, and music curriculums. If parents want to get the best possible education outcomes for their kids, they can find it right here in Mesa Public Schools.”

Mesa Unified School District — also known as Mesa Public Schools — is the largest public school district in Arizona and has six high schools, nine junior high schools, 55 elementary schools and 18 choice and success schools.