More than 50,000 students left Michigan public schools this year. Where did they go?

More than 50,000 students have fled Michigan’s K-12 public schools this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a mass exodus that could amount to millions of dollars in lost school funding from the state.

School leaders are now tasked with finding those students and bringing them back to the public school system next year. But the return of those students is not a guarantee, as thousands of Michigan families have opted for alternatives like homeschooling and charter schools amid the pandemic.

“Every child is important,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a recent op-ed. “To lose even one is too many.”

Michigan public school enrollment is down 53,200 students this fall, a 3.7% decline from the roughly 1.5 million students recorded last year, according to enrollment figures verified by the state’s Center for Education and Performance Information.

While Michigan public schools have seen steadily declining enrollment in the last decade, the departure of thousands of students this year can be linked mostly to the COVID-19 crisis, Rice said in a recent op-ed.

That’s especially true with the 13,000 students missing from this year’s count because their parents chose to delay their start in kindergarten due to the pandemic. While some of these children who aren’t yet ready to start school will likely benefit from a year-long delay in kindergarten, others won’t, Rice said.

“Still, these children aren’t missing,” Rice wrote in the prepared statement. “Their parents have delayed their kindergarten entry in a pandemic, as is their right.”

More than 17,000 students also have been reported as leaving their public schools for homeschooling this year, a huge increase from the roughly 3,000 students per year who typically are recorded as homeschooled, Rice said.

RELATED: Many Michigan parents chose home schooling during the pandemic. Will they return?

The state does not track the movement of students who switch to a non-public school, which Rice said is mainly because many parents don’t report to their local district where they are taking their kids.

“We can track moves between public schools. However, tracking enrollment in home schools and nonpublic schools, or schools in another state, is unlikely due to different reporting requirements,” MDE spokesman William DiSessa said in a prepared statement.

As a result of this, roughly another 13,000 students are missing from the state’s enrollment count – and educators don’t know where they went.

“All children should be connected to a school – public, private, parochial, or homeschool,” Rice said in his statement. “Local schools and school districts should continue to work with the widest range of community partners – faith-based institutions, social service agencies, law enforcement, and others – to ensure that every child in each community is receiving an education.”

Educators across the state are concerned about where these students have gone – or if they are still receiving any remote instruction – and are working diligently to find them.

“We have to somehow recapture these kids that we don’t have this year,” said Sam Sinicropi, superintendent of Lansing Public Schools, which lost roughly 800 students this fall.

Lansing Public Schools is working to find its missing students through a volunteer program called “Take Five,” Sinicropi said. The district utilizes dozens of volunteers to each contact five students a week who have not enrolled or have poor attendance. The goal is to help get these kids back to learning, Sinicropi said.

“That’s been successful in some cases – but we still got a lot of work to do,” he said.

On the west side of the state, Muskegon-area schools will soon have access to a recently-created truancy officer position, which will work to connect students back to the school system, said Muskegon Area Intermediate School District Superintendent John Severson.

“We know that while we’re in this virtual world there’s still a disconnect with kids that are not showing up to classes,” Severson said.

“We felt that we needed to be more proactive with this, because bottom line, we want students to graduate. So this new position will be an ISD staff member who is out in the field, working with districts to get kids back in school.”

There is concern among school leaders about many students being behind academically once they return to the public schools, Severson said.

“I mean, we’ve never been in this type of situation before,” he said. “When we come out of this, we have to really be in a good position fiscally but also staff wise to catch these kids up as quickly as we can. That could be unique tutoring, summer programming, smaller class sizes, different kinds of supports for kids.

“I’m really worried about the younger aged of them falling behind — kids who are in kindergarten, first grade that weren’t in that classroom, we’re all very concerned about that.”

But overall, Severson said he isn’t concerned families will choose to stay out of the public schools after the pandemic. He said he’s confident students who left will come back because parents trust their local public schools.

“We are a safe and good place for kids to be, and we know parents are going to want their kids back in school once it’s safe,” he said.

The state’s enrollment drop will have a financial impact on some public schools, despite state lawmakers creating a new funding formula this year to keep schools from being penalized if students left their district for other preferred learning options.

The “super blend” school funding formula weighs 75% of last year’s attendance and 25% of this year’s attendance. Usually, the fall count day in October makes up 90% of the school’s funding and the February count provides 10% of the total funding.

However, Grand Rapids Public Schools saw such a drastic enrollment drop it will lose roughly $1 million in state funding this year, district spokesperson John Helmholdt said.

RELATED: COVID-19 pandemic cuts Grand Rapids schools enrollment by more than 800 students

The district lost more than 800 students this fall, a 5% decline school leaders largely attribute to the district’s decision to conduct online-only classes amid the coronavirus pandemic. GRPS is the largest district in West Michigan with 14,509 students.

Grand Rapids administrators have not yet determined how to offset the reduced state funding, Helmholdt said.

But when it comes to spending cuts, Michigan Education Association spokesperson Liz Boyd said it is imperative that teachers have a seat at the discussion table.

“Across the board, (educators) are on the front line when it comes to public education and, therefore, are in the best position to help school administrators determine how they will adjust budgets in ways that will not jeopardize the mission of educating our young people,” Boyd said in a prepared statement.

Many districts, like Lansing Public Schools, will not see a decline in funding this year thanks to the state’s new funding formula. Lansing saw a 9% decrease in student enrollment this year, but is above its enrollment projections for this year’s budget, Sinicropi said.

Adjustments to the state funding formula again next year are a necessity, Sinicropi said.

“Unless the state does something different with funding, we’ll have a problem next year, in the 2021-2022 academic year,” he said. “We have to somehow recapture some of these kids that we don’t have this year.”

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More on MLive:

A look back at the lost semester of school in Michigan

Michigan’s next school semester might look more like 2020 than a new year

In-person classes don’t contribute to community spread of COVID-19, report shows

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