Interesting article about the shrinking public schools in Louisiana

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While some Louisiana school districts have started to right-size, others have put off the reckoning. Nearly all of Louisiana’s roughly 70 traditional school districts lost students over the past decade. Meanwhile, their employment levels often see-sawed

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St. Landry Parish has seen enrollment fall as families have fewer kids, move away or opt for charters or homeschool. Yet even as the school system lost roughly a quarter of its students over the past decade, its workforce grew by nearly 20%.

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Post-pandemic, the state’s public schools lost nearly 44,000 students, yet added more than 11,000 staffers

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Louisiana’s population of students still learning English, many of them recent immigrants, soared over 150% from 2010 to 2021, more than any other state

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local voters rejected a tax hike that would have boosted school employees’ low pay, leading frustrated bus drivers — who earn less than $25,000 annually — to stage a sickout.

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Caddo Parish might offer a glimpse of this future. The school system, which includes Shreveport, shed nearly 8,500 students over the past decade. In response, officials say, they’ve taken aggressive steps to right-size the district. More than 20 schools have been shuttered since 2000, and the district had about 1,050 fewer employees in 2024 than a decade earlier.

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