Thousands of students "missing" from school systems amid pandemic

In Michigan, K-12 enrollment decreased this fall by some 53,000 students out of about 1.5 million students. In a December op-ed, state Superintendent Michael Rice said much of the drop was due to factors such as an annual decline in enrollment for the past 10 years, parents opting to hold their children back from kindergarten and an increase in the number of home-schooled students, ultimately accounting for approximately 40,000 of those students.

However, he said, “of significant concern” are the approximately 13,000 students fully unaccounted for…

In Dallas, Texas, which was home to approximately 153,000 students last year, there are about 9,000 high-schoolers, 2,000 middle-schoolers, and 1,000 elementary school students unaccounted for, Robyn Harris, a representative from the Dallas Independent School District, told ABC News.