News Photo by Crystal Nelson Matt Bedard, Alpena Community College business management and marketing instructor, poses for a photo in his office last month.

ALPENA — It’s too soon to say how the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic will impact schools and student performance in Northeast Michigan, with available state data showing mixed messages.

Combined, Northeast Michigan schools lost 4% of students between fall 2019 and fall 2020, according to state data, while statewide enrollment actually increased 0.55%. But that could simply reflect a continuing trend — student loss climbed from less than 1% between 2017 and 2018 to nearly 3% between 2018 and 2019. Between 2019 and 2020, schools lost about 2%.

Approximately 86% of students graduated on time from Northeast Michigan high schools last spring, compared to nearly 83% in 2018. But the pandemic had just begun last spring, so this spring’s graduation rates will show the truest measurement of the coronavirus’ impact.

Meanwhile, 53% of Northeast Michigan graduates attended college within six months of graduating in 2020, down from 58% the previous year. However, that figure fell from 63% in 2019, well before the pandemic began, so it isn’t clear the coronavirus hit college enrollment.

Other data that could show the virus’ impact, such as standardized test results, has not been released. Internal school data, however, shows kids struggling as schools switch back and forth from in-person and online learning amid COVID-19 outbreaks. At Alpena Public Schools, for example, about 400 students were failing at least one class as of mid-March.

While available data doesn’t show the full effect of the virus, local school officials say they’ve seen the impact firsthand.

“Students are struggling,” said Dan O’Connor, superintendent of Alcona Community Schools. “Between the changes in format to isolation, nothing is easy. High school students are especially struggling due to failing classing at 20% higher rate than normal circumstances.”

ENROLLMENT

State data makes it hard to blame the pandemic for all student loss.

In Alcona, for example, about 5% fewer students enrolled this school year than the previous year, but that district actually lost a higher percentage of students between 2018 and 2019, state data shows.

“It’s kind of the perfect storm of declining birth rates, smaller kindergarten classes in comparison to what we’re graduating,” O’Connor said. “Then, on top of it, there are some students who have chosen other educational options or, unfortunately, chose to drop out of school during this stretch, as well.”

O’Connor said he knows specific circumstances in which students have dropped out because of masking requirements at schools or other coronavirus restrictions.

“We’re funded per student, so, the fewer students we have, the less staff we have, the fewer programs we’re going to be able to offer,” O’Connor said. “It just has a ripple effect throughout.”

With a nearly 10% decrease in enrollment between 2019 and 2020, Rogers City Area Schools lost the most students among Northeast Michigan districts.

Rogers City Superintendent Nick Hein blamed his district’s declining enrollment on the decrease in population in Rogers City, not the pandemic.

While parents could enroll their students in any online school they wanted, all online students attend programs Rogers City offers, Hein said.

Instead, Hein said, more students leave the district through graduation than come into the district through kindergarten. He estimates about 60 kids will graduate from high school this year, with around 30 students entering kindergarten.

“We’re probably going to have one more year of this, and then the numbers should stabilize after that,” he said. “We’ve been adjusting staff as we go, as well, to remain fiscally responsible.”

Meanwhile, Hillman Community Schools and Posen Consolidated Schools saw enrollment increase. Superintendents in those districts could not be reached for comment.

COLLEGE ENROLLMENT

While state data shows a smaller percentage of Northeast Michigan students heading directly off to college in recent years, Alpena Community College officials said they’ve kept enrollment steadier than at other colleges because they already had a strong remote learning program before the pandemic hit.

ACC says it lost about 4% of students between last year and this year.

While the decrease is disheartening, some community colleges in the state saw double digit enrollment losses, Matt Bedard, ACC business management and marketing instructor, said.

“The idea of transitioning into remote status was really, for many of us, a seamless transition, and many of our students had participated or were at least comfortable in the technology,” he said. “I don’t think it was as large a hurdle for our students as maybe it was for some of the other colleges.”