Mary Byrne
School enrollment forecasts indicate that by 2028-2029, there will be almost 200 fewer students in the Belmont Public Schools than there are currently, and the decline will continue well into the next decade.
In the 2023-2024 academic year, 4,424 students were enrolled in the district.
According to a report by McKibben Demographic Research, total enrollment is forecasted to decrease by 171 students from the current academic year to the 2028-29 school year. From then to the 2033-34 school year, enrollment is expected to further decrease by another 34 students. This is primarily a result of an aging population, an increase in “empty nest” households, and “relatively large 12th-grade cohorts leaving the school system and the area.”
The total elementary enrollment, however, is predicted to slowly increase after the 2027-28 school year.
Jerome McKibben, who recently presented the report to school officials, said the pace and magnitude of existing home sales, particularly among the elderly population and the “empty nesters,” is the key determinant of how enrollment will change over time. Roughly 25% of Belmont homeowners now are over the age of 65, he said. That means there is the possibility of a high rate of turnover in the next 10 years.
“The most important variable in forecasting population is not births, death, migration; it’s the age structure of your population,” he said. “How is your population distributed over the life course?”
Based on McKibben’s findings, the primary factors causing enrollment to decrease over the next 10 years are the increase in households occupied by people ages 55 to 69 who no longer have school-aged children, a relatively low number of elderly housing units turning over, and a flat rate of in-migration of young families.
“The supply of existing homes on the market is at a 20-, 30-, 40-year low,” he said. “Belmont is no exception.”
Committee Questions
School Committee member Matthew Kraft asked how the MBTA Communities Act may impact enrollment. The MBTA Communities Act requires communities served by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to update zoning to expand housing opportunities.
“Every school district we’ve done this year has been talking about this MBTA project. If you add all those numbers up, they’d have to depopulate Boston,” McKibben said. “My advice —
and I told Newton and Needham and Andover — is when they break ground, then you start worrying about it.”
Committee member Jung Yueh asked how COVID-19 impacted enrollment trends and what role new school buildings play in enrollment.
“We had 400,000 excess deaths in 2020 and 2021; what they forgot to notice were births,” McKibben said. “Births dropped by 120,000, not just in Massachusetts but all across the country, so most schools are looking at smaller cohorts coming in ‘24, ’25, ‘26. “
He said births in the United States have been dropping for 15 years.
“The pie is getting smaller. All these school districts, all these colleges, anyone in education is getting a smaller piece of the pie,” he said.
According to McKibben, the biggest impact new buildings have on enrollment is actually the retention of current students who might otherwise leave the district.
Member Jeffrey Liberty asked if there were any mistakes other communities had made when presented with enrollment forecasts.
“I’m a firm believer that districts should make informed decisions and not knee-jerk reactions to short-term trends,” McKibben said.
Still, every district should review its configuration every eight years.
“The location you’re building for staff is going to be that way for 50, 60, 70 years, but the location of your students will always change,” he said. “It ebbs and flows … it’ll turn over.”
