The Kids Are Alright—They’re Just Not Here

From 2018 to 2025, Superior Public Schools lost 722 students. That’s not a trickle—that’s a hemorrhage. We started at 4,622; now we’re sitting at 3,900, which is basically the school district equivalent of the Titanic playing musical chairs.

And like any bad breakup, the school board says, “It’s not you, it’s demographic shifts, charter schools, and millennials who don’t wanna make babies in a town run like a bad HOA.”

Translation: nobody wants to raise kids in a city where you need an emotional support raccoon to survive the housing market, and your school board thinks “strategic planning” means cutting art and pretending it’s innovation.

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Year-By-Year: The Dwindling Enrollment Parade

Here’s the tragic little waltz of numbers:

• • 2018-2019: 4,622 students

• • 2019-2020: 4,538 (Lost 84 – Meh, maybe they moved for better pizza)

• • 2020-2021: 4,321 (Lost 217 – Thanks, COVID! Your legacy lives on in homeschooled feral children.)

• • 2021-2022: 4,181 (Lost 140 – Now we’re panicking)

• • 2022-2023: 4,155 (Lost 26 – False hope sets in)

• • 2023-2024: 4,023 (Lost 132 – Just kidding)

• • 2024-2025: 3,900 (Lost 123 – Cue funeral music)

The sharpest dip was in 2020-2021, when families took one look at Zoom kindergarten and said, “Hard pass.” You could’ve taught math with interpretive dance and a puppet named Fraction Fred, and those kids still weren’t logging in.

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Where Did All the Little Humans Go?

• • Charter schools: Like if Amazon ran a school and promised “free thinking.”

• • Homeschooling: The new suburban rebellion.

• • Virtual academies: Also known as letting your kid game all day in a hoodie.

• • Housing costs: Families priced out by rent or taxes that requires three jobs, and one OnlyFans.

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Teachers: Holding It Together with Scotch Tape and Grit

While admin and the school board draft six-point “strategic goals” that include buzzwords like “cohort stabilization” and “operational synergy,” teachers are in the trenches like exhausted foot soldiers in a war against calculators that won’t charge.

Let’s be real: Teachers are saints. They keep showing up while district brass discusses which school to turn into a parking lot.

Meanwhile, the janitor who’s seen more action than the school board president isn’t getting a raise.

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Budget: How to Lose $10 Million Without Really Trying

722 kids gone = up to $10.8 million in funding gone. But does the electricity bill shrink? No.
Do buildings magically cost less? Nope.
Does the Superintendent and the other city admin elites forgo raises out of solidarity? Not unless hell freezes and opens a charter school.

This is why you’ll soon see a school named “Superior Consolidated Experiential Learning Opportunity Hub”… also known as a bunch of grades crammed into one sad building.

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Solutions™: When PowerPoint Slides Become Policy

District brass has rolled out their Greatest Hits:

• • “Retention Initiatives” – A fancy term for “Please don’t leave.”

• • “Marketing Campaigns” – As if an Instagram post can fix systemic rot.

• • “Program Innovation” – Translation: we’re adding robotics to a school with leaky pipes.

• • “Facility Optimization” – AKA: “Let’s close your neighborhood school and say it’s progress.”

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Parents: Shrinking Class Sizes, Growing Anxiety

Some love the smaller class sizes. Others look around and think, “Is this school gonna vanish before my kid hits high school?”

A lot of parents chose this district for its small-town charm. Now they’re wondering if their taxes are paying for educational excellence or just another raise for the Superintendent.

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Their Crystal Ball Is Just a Snow Globe

Future projections say it’s gonna get worse before it gets…meh. Birth rates are still in the toilet. Housing still ain’t affordable. And millennials are too broke and traumatized to breed.

Best-case? Enrollment stabilizes at 20-30% below 2018 levels. Worst-case? You’ll see “For Lease” signs on playgrounds.

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Final Crossing Signal: Welcome to the Shrinking City

This isn’t just about schools. It’s about the city losing young families, energy, and the will to fix what’s broken.

The teachers? Heroes. The kids? Resilient as hell. The admin? Busy rebranding collapse as “restructuring.”

Sources :

WISEdash

Wisconsin Policy Forum

#NowYouUndersandYourTaxes

#WhereDidTheKidsGo?

#SchoolFundingCrisis