Framingham's school population has greatly varied recently. Officials have theories why

FRAMINGHAM — After seeing a massive rise in school enrollment during the 2022-23 school year, Framingham Public Schools has seen a significant decrease in students this year, leaving administrators seeking answers.

Last school year, FPS had 9,274 students in the district, according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, an increase of 450 students (5%) from the 8,824 students that were reported for the 2021-22 school year. That surge forced the district to make significant arrangements to educate what amounted to a full elementary school’s worth of new students.

However, FPS would see a decrease in students for the current school year, with 9,134 students reported by DESE. Superintendent of Schools Robert Tremblay told the Daily News that enrollment has been up and down since the pandemic. He cited the volatility of the housing market and its impact on affordable living in Framingham as having influenced school enrollment.

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“There are a lot of variables that have happened coming out of the pandemic — we saw declining enrollment there because parents held their kids back (from entering kindergarten) during COVID,” Tremblay said. “We are seeing a lot of neighborhood turnover, with people aging and moving away and families moving into those homes. At the same time, with the affordability in Framingham, we are seeing people leave the district in order to find more affordable housing elsewhere.”

School district works with demographer to project future enrollment

Tremblay said the district works with a demographer that examines things such as birth rate data, housing market statistics, interest rates and other statistics to project future enrollment. While the demographer has been accurate in predicting broader trends, the reason why students have been coming and going at wider disparities is still to be determined.

“We're not quite sure why we lost 140 students (this year), we don’t know where all of the students have gone, other than that they have moved out of the district,” Tremblay said. “We do conduct an exit survey, we haven’t seen any evidence that people are upset with FPS and are taking their kids out of the school system. What we are hearing from our demographer is that the affordability in Framingham is a major reason.”

The median sales price for a single-family home sold in Framingham in 2023 was $628,000, according to The Warren Group, a Peabody-based provider of banking and real estate data. That figure is 26.6% higher than the median of $496,000 just three years earlier, in 2020.

The fluctuating nature of enrollment has a direct impact on the city's school budget, as Chapter 70 funding — the state aid that is annually given to each school district — is determined in part by enrollment figures.

This year, the district saw a huge increase in Chapter 70 funding, going from $68.85 million in fiscal 2023 to $85 million in fiscal 2024, corresponding with the previous year's large increase in enrollment. With this year's loss of students, Chapter 70 funding for fiscal 2025 is projected to be about $86 million, up $900,000 from the previous year.

“It’s important to note that we are not getting less Chapter 70 aid — despite the reduction in students, we are getting the sort of minimal increase we could get year to year,” Tremblay said.

Enrollment issues are raised during joint budget meeting

During a joint meeting Tuesday between the finance subcommittees of both the Framingham City Council and Framingham School Committee, City Councilor Adam Steiner asked the district to clarify the fluctuation between student enrollment surging higher, then decreasing the following year.

“Every year we put forward a budget that we think really supports all students — the last two years we have added over 50 positions both years," said Lincoln Lynch, the school district's director of finance and operations, during Tuesday's meeting. "We saw the increase, 440 students, we saw the Chapter 70 increase, and we felt that adding those positions was important for those students. That 440 is a huge jump and you see the swing back to where we are currently at, and the state aid funding situation that we are currently facing.”

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“It’s the $15.2 million, why it dropped," Lynch continued. "We are trying to look into it, trying to compare, down into the weeds of each category of enrollment and I don’t think we have a real solid answer for why it went down."

Steiner added that understanding the enrollment drop is key to understanding the long-term financial outlook for the district in terms of Chapter 70 funding — specifically, whether this year's enrollment decline is a one-time decrease or the start of a trend.

“I think it’s key in understanding if this is just a one-time decrease in enrollment or not,” Steiner said.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham Public Schools: Fewer students may be from housing costs