School districts nationwide could face financial peril next year. Here’s how Colorado is preparing.
High above the fields of Alamosa this past summer, kids steered a drone and peered at the aerial views it captured, learning not just how to fly the device but also how to use it to solve math problems. In the rural stretch of southern Colorado, that means analyzing a circle of hay recorded by the drone and calculating its dimensions.
Summer school, at least in Alamosa, was suddenly cool.
Alamosa School District RE-11J rounded out its summer school program with more hands-on activities thanks to federal stimulus dollars that help students learn in more creative ways. But once those funds run out by the fall of next year, the district of 2,055 students wonders whether it will be able to keep teaching kids over the summer months in ways that ignite excitement for learning.
Eliminating summer school could be one of the drastic measures districts find themselves taking, or at least weighing, in the near future. School districts across the country are speeding toward a fiscal cliff with budgets facing a potential bottleneck next year, constrained by a convergence of factors. Among them: the end of federal COVID relief dollars next September, declining enrollment in many districts — which often means those districts receive less state funding — and inflation adding to districts’ expenses.
One national expert frames the 2024-25 school year as “the bloodletting.”