“Sadly, since the onset of the pandemic, our school roster has declined by 120 students who have left our school,” Garraway wrote. “We will miss them! Due to the drastic decline in our numbers, our budget to pay teacher salaries was drastically reduced.”
The school had 345 kids in 2018-2019, the school year before the pandemic hit, and is slated to enroll around just 225 students this upcoming year, according to the principal’s note.
PS 118’s kindergarten enrollment has plunged by more than 50 percent over the last two years, going from 76 in 2019 to just 37 last year.
School sources said some families have abandoned the city outright while others are opting for local parochial or private schools with consistent full-time schooling.