November 20, 2014
Mariah Timms
News Writer
Virginia
Public school enrollment in Virginia has risen to about 40 percent of the possible students in the state. Public schools rely on enrollment for state funding, and rural school enrollment had been dropping since the 2008 recession. Smaller classes mean less funding, pushing some schools to cut back on extracurricular activities or even merge small schools. The current jump occurred in only 31 percent of the commonwealth’s districts. Most of this growth occurred in the north of the state. Records show that fewer people moved out of that region than elsewhere in the state, and that the birth rate is also on the rise in northern Virginia.
