Fewer Students, Higher Costs Haldane to Shift Fifth Graders

Highlands Current Audio Stories · May 22, 2026 · 9m

Public schools face many challenges. In this, the first part of an ongoing series, we examine the effects of declining enrollments. For the last two decades, public schools in the Highlands have been losing enrollment. It's the same story across much of the country, thanks to declining birthrates and the rise of homeschooling and charter schools. In New York, the problem has been exacerbated by people leaving the state. The Beacon district, which includes four elementary schools, a middle school and high school, had 3,600 students in 2004 but fewer than 2,500 today, a drop of 31 percent…