Washington state's biggest school district is considering shuttering some schools and laying off staff in the near future as enrollment rates continue to drop following the pandemic.  The liberals, fools and woke are inheriting the earth.  

     Seattle Public Schools officials floated the idea of "consolidating" schools during a workshop reported on by The Seattle Times. Funding for most school districts is tied to the number of students, so declines in enrollment will likely contribute to budget shortfalls

     The city's school system has lost more than 3,500 students since the pandemic and expects to lose another 3,000 by the 2025-2026 school year, according to data from the district. If that happens, it will mark a 12.5% decrease in enrollment over six years.  It's not entirely clear where students are going, said Jen Garrison Stuber of the Washington Homeschool Organization.  

     Homeschooling rates in Washington nearly doubled at the height of the pandemic, according to state data, and currently sit at about a 43% increase over the 2019-2020 school year. But in Seattle, there are actually fewer registered homeschoolers than before the pandemic, Garrison Stuber said. "I really think that what Seattle's seeing, where those students have gone are either to private schools or they've left the school district and have moved elsewhere," she said.

     Seattle could begin consolidating schools going into the fall of 2024, with rough estimates showing $28 million in savings, the Times reported.  In Oregon, Portland schools have seen an even larger exodus, losing about 8% of their students since 2019, according to The Oregonian. Most of that decrease was at the elementary level, but Portland Public Schools officials do not plan to close any schools, the outlet reported.