SANTA FE – Public education officials are presenting the results of a survey about students who have disappeared from public schools without explanation during the pandemic, in which nearly all teaching has been conducted online.

One issue vexing school leaders is a significant drop in enrollment this fall, estimated at about 4%. More than 12,000 students did not inform schools about why they left, with no indication of a transfer or pivot to home school.

An initial collection of 738 responses to a survey of those students was presented to the Legislature on Friday. It gives an initial look at what happened to the missing students across New Mexico during the pandemic.

About 114 students, or 18%, moved out of state, according to the state Public Education Department. Just 21 students said they are not attending school at all.

Months of data processing and cross-referencing by department officials have accounted for about 5,000 of the students, education officials told legislators. The vast majority had switched to private schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools or moved out of state.

“This has been an all-hands-on-deck effort. Locating these students, supporting all their needs the best we can and getting them re-engaged ASAP is a top priority,” education secretary Ryan Stewart said.

Statewide public school enrollment was on the decline before the pandemic. Population decreases and other factors have shaved about 1.5% from the public school rolls annually in recent years.

The fewer students a school has, the less funding it gets under the state’s funding formula that supplies the majority public school budgets.

School superintendents are begging the Legislature to cushion the blow of the anticipated 4% disenrollment.

They argue that the funding, which is pegged to enrollment from the previous year, won’t account for the anticipated wave of students returning to school next fall after the pandemic has subsided.

Legislators are considering several approaches to adjust enrollment numbers to account for the pandemic and sustain spending at schools with plunging enrollments.

In the responses collected by the education department, 155 students were reported to plan to return to public school in 2021. Another 144 students will take a “wait and see” approach, meaning between a quarter and half of respondents students could re-enroll next fall.