The movement of large employers away from Monroeville and competition from charter schools in and near the district has left Gateway School District with fewer students than the district has had in more than a decade, according to figures provided by the district and state Department of Education.
Gateway has lost students every year since the 2003-04 school year, with a decline from 4,432 students that year to 3,454 this academic year, which began in late August.
Citing declining numbers of students, the district school board eliminated nine teaching positions — 6.5 from the high school, 1.5 from Gateway Middle School and one elementary teaching position — in June before the current school year began. It's unclear whether the district will make more cuts if the trend continues.
“Each year, the administration and school board evaluate the budget and the educational needs then determine what additions or cuts need to be made. We take that on a year-to-year basis,” district spokeswoman Cara Zanella said.
Gateway is not alone in the state. The number of K-12 students in Pennsylvania school districts and public charter schools has dropped by about 80,000 over the past decade — a decline of about 4 percent, according to Tim Eller, a state Department of Education spokesman.
Gateway has outpaced the state by losing more than a fifth of its students over the past 10 years.
Mary Beth Cirucci, president of the Gateway Parent-Teacher Organization, said this trend doesn't worry her.
“Population trends have cycles, and we are in a downward cycle,” Cirucci said. “I don't think the total amount of enrollment affects the quality of instruction.”
Charter schools zap Gateway numbers
The growing number of charter schools in the Pittsburgh area is behind at least some of the declining enrollment in Gateway district schools, as new charter schools continue to open.
Last year, 215 students who live in the district attended brick-and mortar and cyber charter schools.
The majority — 122― — attended Propel Charter School in Pitcairn, a K-8 school that opened in 2012 in the building that used to house Pitcairn Elementary.
When students leave for charter schools, so does district money. Budget documents on the district website indicate the district will pay $3.6 million — more than 5 percent of its $68 million budget — to charters this year.
Daniel Alexander, father of three students in Gateway schools, said he thought some parents were becoming dissatisfied with district practices.
He said one reason might be an increasing focus on standardized tests.
“They're rushing them through, and then they're testing them out. They're not really focusing on the basics,” Alexander said.
He said he knows parents who have transferred children to private school but was careful to add that he wasn't sure whether these parents were dissatisfied with Gateway or public education as a whole.
“It's hard to put numbers on how many kids have left (for charters) because they come and go,” school director Oliver Drumheller said.
Zanella said the district implemented its own online curriculum to compete with cyber schools during the 2010-11 school year. Fifty-seven students are currently in the program.
James Woodworth, an education researcher at the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University in California, said competition from charter schools wouldn't account for a loss of more than a fifth of Gateway's students.
“The idea that just charter schools would cause that is very, very unlikely,” Woodworth said.
Losses and gains in enrollment in a district's schools usually follow changes in the job market, he said.
Westinghouse move had impact
The largest single hit on the local work force probably came from Westinghouse Electric Co., which employed 2,400 in Monroeville in 2007, when the company decided to move its headquarters to Cranberry. By 2012, the company had ceased operations in Monroeville at its Northern Pike office complex.
“I know several families who relocated to Cranberry because of their employment with Westinghouse,” Cirucci said.
“I think it has taken Monroeville a while to recover from that, and they still are recovering.”
School board Vice President Chad Stubenbort said the decline is a sign to district officials that it needs to find ways to attract new families to the district and retain students.
“We want to control what we can control,” he said. “The only part that we can control is that we make sure we're offering the best product available.”
