Follow the students

Kootenai County is growing, and so is the number of students in the area.

Where they're going to school reflects a change in the county's makeup.

The 2020 U.S. Census Bureau shows Kootenai County had a 32,838-resident increase from April 1, 2010, to the same time last year, the third-largest and third-fastest growing county in Idaho.

Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization projects over 300,000 Kootenai County residents by 2040, meaning thousands of more students.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s happening with enrollment in local homeschools, private schools and public schools.

HOMESCHOOL

According to homeschool co-op leaders, homeschooling has grown more popular and has taken an abnormally large increase in numbers over the past two years.

Laura Anderson, a homeschool mom and admin of the Facebook group Coeur d’Alene Area Homeschool Community, a local support group for homeschooling families, said their group has grown significantly since 2019, adding at least 1,000 members.

The group has 2,100 members, far more than the 35 members it had when Anderson took over the group in 2016.

Anderson said she believes a couple hundred of the new members are parents who previously used their school district’s online schooling.

She said many new group members said their students were having technical issues with their school districts' online schooling, such as chaotic Zoom meetings or not being able to get hold of teachers, and they wanted to try something different.

“The district policies that are ever-changing forced parents to want a solid educational pathway during the pandemic,” Anderson said. “The pandemic is still around the corner and parents wanted a solid foundation with zero interruptions to student learning.”

Anderson said they’ve also had a lot of new families moving to the area who just went directly into homeschooling.

She said a lot of these people have moved from states with great school systems, and went to homeschooling when they learned Idaho ranks 38th in education, according to the World Population Review.

“They're coming here and they're checking things out and going, 'no way no how,'” Anderson said. “We just have noticed that there's a huge influx of new homeschoolers that are jumping in the boat.”

Anderson said her group has nothing against the school districts, the method of learning just hasn’t worked best for everyone.

Gretchen Winde, director of the Inland Northwest Christian Homeschoolers Co-op in Hayden, said they're back at full capacity this year, which they haven’t reached for the past three years.

In 2020 they had a 14% increase of students through 12 new families. Winde said about half of the new families were new to homeschooling as well, dropping out of the public school system.

This year they went up another 12% in enrollment, receiving 15 new families, none of which were new to homeschooling.

“It’s more popular to homeschool now, and our population increase, that’s a big part of it,” Winde said. “We have a lot of people who have just moved to town but already homeschool.”

Winde said most of the new people this year are from California or Washington, leaving the less conservative states.

She said she expects homeschooling to keep growing with the population increase, as well as if masks get put back in the schools.

Jean Justus Wright, president of the North Idaho Homeschooling Education Association (NIHEA), said homeschooling is definitely on the rise as parents are pulling their children out of the public school system.

The NIHEA has seen a 20% increase, gaining about 100 students last year compared to the 20 to 40 new students they normally receive, Wright said.

Wright attributes the majority of the increase to parents being upset over stipulations put in place at public schools for COVID-19 precautions, along with families moving to Idaho because of the open homeschool rules.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Private school directors said they are filling up their two-year waiting lists, as well as preparing to expand.

Ann Matlock, the founder and teacher at Heritage Christian Academy in Spirit Lake, said the school receives numerous calls from people out of state looking to move to Idaho for various reasons.

“We have had lots of people moving up this direction so it's definitely impacting our school,” Matlock said. “Mostly what people were looking for was an alternative to the public schools, as well as they were looking for a place where their kids wouldn't be masked.”

Since the pandemic began, Matlock said they’ve grown because of people's personal feelings about liberties.

As their building holds only 24 kids at full capacity, Matlock said they have a waiting list for many grades.

According to Rev. John Young, director and administrator of CornerStone Christian Academy in Post Falls, the enrollment numbers have been trending upward for the last few years and they are now at full capacity, although it’s not completely related to the pandemic.

Young said they were the first school in the state to reopen after the pandemic hit, and consequently were flooded with people looking for a new school that handled COVID without masks or plastic dividers but rather highly elevated cleaning.

“We were already at capacity because of our school policies and positions with ‘society’ and such,” Young said in an email to the Press. “With the pandemic, we just got flooded with Washington residents looking for schools that stood ground on some of these things.”

Those positions and policies include a year-round schedule and armed staff, as well as a refrain from teaching liberal positions and common core.

The school has been operating at maximum capacity with 200 students for the last two years, as well as having a two-year waiting list for many classes.

Genesis Preparatory Academy, a Christian private school in Post Falls, has grown by 336 students over the past five years, increasing throughout the pandemic.

Their largest increase came this past year, putting them at maximum capacity with 561 students.

Kristina Kenny, director of development, said the majority of new students have come from families moving to the area, followed by students leaving public schools.

Because of the increase, Kenny said the school will build an expansion that allows them to serve up to 858 students in phase one, with a completion date set for the summer of 2023.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

While public schools have taken a hit during the pandemic, some are already back to pre-COVID highs.

Scott Maben, director of communications for Coeur d'Alene School District, said on average the district gains around 100 to 200 students a year with the growth in the community.

The district 1,564 students in 2020 but gained back 766 students this fall. Coeur d'Alene School District has 10,196 students currently enrolled.

Maben said the high schools are operating at maximum capacity while elementary schools have taken the biggest hit.

Katie Ebner, director of finance, said officials wonder if it’s due to changing demographics because of the rise in housing costs and/or concerns over COVID-19.

Maben said with population growth, they think they’ll keep seeing new families come to the district. Most of the growth happens in schools on the west side of the district, where new housing is going up.

To accommodate the growth, Maben said if funding is secured, the district plans to build a fourth middle school and an elementary school on the west side of the district, with the timing of the projects dependent largely on the enrollment recovering for the next school year.

The district is also opening a new K-12 magnet school next year.

Post Falls School District had a steady, slow increase of 100-150 students a year the last few years before the pandemic.

The district about 5% of its enrollment in 2020, dropping from 6,167 to 5,869 students, but has regained that lost ground and picked up an additional 68 students.

“Obviously, the pandemic played a role in our drop-in enrollment last year,” said Superintendent Dena Naccarato in an email to The Press. “Many parents whose students tried an online option returned to in-person instruction this year.”

Lakeland Joint School District did not respond to Press requests for enrollment information.