Tempe Union student enrollment slide to continue, expert finds

Demographer Rock Brammer of Applied Economics LLC produced data showing the decline of Tempe Union students among both kids who live within district boundaries and those coming from other areas of the Valley (Applied Economics)

Tempe Union High School District has lost 1,172 students in the last five years – almost as many as it lost in the previous 12 years – and will continue losing more over the next 10 as fewer students from inside and outside its boundaries enroll in its schools.

That assessment last month by the district's demographer, Rick Brammer of Applied Economics, echoes his similar assessment for Kyrene School District.

But it also takes on added significance as a new report last week showed that the number of students heading to private schools as a result of the expanded voucher program could rise far higher than projected at a cost of nearly $1 trillion to Arizona taxpayers (see report on page 20).

Because a significant portion of any district's state subsidy is based on the number of students it has, Tempe Union's decline could pose financial challenges down the road.

The unexpected high number of students sent by their parents to private schools augments that financial pressure.

Brammer told the Tempe Union Governing Board that the same factors influencing Kyrene's enrollment are pushing Tempe Union's decline.

Those factors primarily include a low birth rate and the average cost of a single-family home in Ahwatukee, Tempe and Chandler.

Home prices not only are too high for younger families with kids but high mortgage rates and those prices also are prompting older homeowners without school-aged children to stay put, Brammer said.

"The age distribution of householders in the district is shifting away from the child-bearing cohorts," he said.

Although he said "housing turnover rates in the district are increasing " and that "this could mitigate the aging of the resident population," Brammer cautioned, "It is doubtful that either changing demographics or residential construction will be sufficient to prevent enrollment from declining over the next 10 years."

Also pushing enrollment down is a decline in the number of students from outside Tempe Union's boundaries.

Charter and private schools also are exacting a toll, Brammer said.

"One of the things that we have seen, especially over the last three or four years, is charter schools getting more involved at the high school level," Brammer said.

"They originally really got started with the big numbers game at the elementary level but as they developed more and more specialized schools with gyms and tracks and things like that, they are actually having a bigger impact at the high school level."

From its peak enrollment in 2005-06 of close to 13,000 students who lived within district boundaries, Tempe Union has lost 2,500 and is projected to see no more than 9,000 enroll from within the district by 2032-33, Brammer's data showed.

In the last 20 years, the district's overall enrollment peaked at 14,000 between 2014 and 2018 because of the high number of students who attended Tempe Union schools from outside the district.

During those years, the district's total enrollment counted close to 3,000 out-of-district students.

But that number has been shrinking since 2018 and by 2032-33, only about 2,000 out-of-district students are projected to attend Tempe Union schools, bringing total enrollment to about 11,000.

Brammer's report also showed:

‘Significant differences exist" between the number of students who live within the attendance boundaries of each Tempe Union high school and the those enrolled in that school.

Corona del Sol, McClintock and Desert Vista all counted a significant number of students who did not live within their boundaries. However, Desert Vista also had the highest percentage of students who lived in its attendance area.

Desert Vista's total enrollment of 2,983 students was the largest this past school year with Corona coming in second with 2,738. Mountain Pointe held fourth place among the district's six high schools.

Charter and private school enrollment by students living within the district increased steadily through 2018-19 and "appears to have peaked for the same reasons district enrollment has peaked" – namely housing costs and low birth rates.

The 12 charters and six private schools located within or very close to Tempe Union boundaries served a total 3,400 kids in grades 9-12.

While the percentage of district residents under 18 continues to fall, the rate of erosion in that age group has slowed since 2000-2010.

That trend largely is driven by a declining birth rate, but is also affected by the shifts in home prices and the average ages of home owners.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of children ages 5-13 fell by 3,606 and the ages of those between 14 and 17 tumbled by 5,633, Brammer said.

The declines in those age groups between 2010 and 2020 were 1,653 for ages 5-13 and 1,151 for kids 14 to 17. Between 2020 and 2022, Brammer said, ages 5-13 saw another decline of 625 and the number between 14 and 17 fell by 337.

Brammer noted the difference in the enrollment declines between Kyrene and Tempe Union, stating the decline among K-8 students "is expected to continue throughout (the next 10 years) but at a diminished rate while the decline at the high school level is likely to continue at the higher rate."

At its peak year of 2017-18, out-of-district enrollment comprised 30% of Tempe Union's total student population. Since then, it has dropped to 20% – which Brammer said is still high compared to most Valley school districts.

But he said the overall decline in school-age kids and the expansion of charters and private schools will continue to erode the number of students from outside Tempe Union.

The most outside-district students come from Phoenix Union High School District, with 1,281 in the just-ended school year. Brammer said 503 students came from second-place Mesa, 335 from Maricopa and 263 from Chandler.

Those totals were all lower than the numbers who attended Tempe Union Schools in 2017-18, with the largest drops being from Phoenix Union (down 120) and Maricopa (down 236).

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