Alabama’s public school enrollment could see its largest decline in 40 years, Alabama State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey told members of the Alabama State Board of Education on Thursday.

Enrollment in the state’s K-12 schools in the 2024-25 school year , a slight increase over 2023-24. The department did not release numbers Thursday for the 2025-26 school year, but Mackey said Thursday only about 12 schools have seen growth in enrollment while other districts have seen numbers decline.

About 5,000 students have been unenrolled from public schools in the state with roughly 3,000 students total taking funds to go to a private school.

The CHOOSE Act is a voucher-like program that offers families up to $7,000 per qualifying child for education related expenses including private school tuition. The program currently operates under income caps scheduled to be lifted next year.

“We know a portion of [the students] took CHOOSE Act dollars and we’re working with the governor’s office and the Department of Revenue to figure out exactly what that number looks like,” he told board members.

The department is expected to release final numbers next Friday.

The loss of students is a nationwide problem. In May, the that there would be a decline in public school enrollment, due to growth in private and charter school enrollment and the general aging of the population. Nationwide, public school enrollment is expected to fall by 7.6% by 2031. Alabama’s

Mackey said Thursday he was mostly concerned with the 2,100 students who were enrolled last year that never showed up for school.

“They didn’t transfer to private school, they didn’t go to home school, they didn’t go to school in another state. They just disappeared,” he told the School Board of Education.

Mackey said local superintendents have reported to him that a majority of the unaccounted students are Hispanic.

“We don’t know if they’re still living in this state, just not going to school. If they have moved to another state, they did not enroll in school in that state,” he told the board. “If they left the country, we don’t know if they are documenting students or undocumented, because, as you know, that’s something we are not allowed to ask, and we don’t ask under federal law.”

According to the , about 12% of students enrolled in Alabama public schools are Hispanic.

Mackey said getting these students back in school is important for their progress.

“If those students all come back to us in January and they missed a semester of instruction, we’re going to teach them, but we’re going to pick them up where they are,” he said. “I would implore, publicly, [for] parents to get them back in school. The sooner they get back in school quicker, we can catch them up and move them forward.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

Alabama schools are set to implement a new system to prevent vaping by public school students in the coming academic year.

, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Drummond D-Mobile, requires the Alabama State Board of Education to create a model policy for local boards of education to adopt by November.

“[Drummond] wanted an anti-vaping law, so we were able to work with her on something that’s not too overwhelming for the districts, but they are all going to have an anti-vaping policy,” State Board of Education Superintendent Eric Mackey told members of the board in a meeting on Tuesday.

Under the proposed policy, students who are caught vaping once will have their parents contacted and students who are caught vaping twice will have to take a state approved vaping awareness, education and prevention class which includes a curriculum created in collaboration with the Drug Education Council.

The topics covered in the proposed curriculum presented to board members include health consequences, peer pressure, nicotine and addiction, resources to quit vaping and common misconceptions about vaping among others.

According to the , the media branch for the Children’s of Alabama hospital, nearly 20% of high school students in 2023 said they had vaped.

Some board members at Tuesday’s meeting questioned the need for the vaping law.

“As an educator, parent and grandparent, I don’t quite understand the focus on this and bifurcating or separating from the other common concerns in every discipline policy,” said Wayne Reynolds, who represents District 8 on the board. “Why would you separate what you’re doing to a child caught vaping and contacting the parents than any other child in the discipline policy?”

District 1 Representative Jackie Zeigler raised concerns about children moving onto other drugs like Fentanyl and Xylazine or tranq and pushed for broader language in the law to prevent having to add resolutions to add other specific items such as marajuana into the law.

“I don’t think by labeling it does any justice,” she said. “We need to make it broader so these things fit into it so we don’t have to come back and say, ‘now we have [THC] gummies, and now we have vaping.’”

Mackey agreed that the law is more specific than most Alabama Department of Education policies, but because it’s the law they have to follow it and said the board is “being no more restrictive than the law requires.”

Beginning in the 1995 school year, Alabama schools were required to have a and the states every county and city school system must have drug abuse and education courses in their curriculum.

The Alabama State Board of Education will vote on the model policy for the law next month.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

State Superintendent Eric Mackey said Thursday that job losses could result from the loss of federal funds in the near future.

Mackey made the comments after the State Board of Education approved the department’s $6.4 billion Education Trust Fund budget request for K-12 schools for fiscal year 2026, which lawmakers will consider when the Alabama Legislature meets for the 2025 regular session in February. Lawmakers will have the final word on how much money is allocated.

Mackey said the request included a $52 million line item for “Struggling Readers Beyond Grade 3.” The superintendent, who did not give an estimate of jobs affected, told reporters that he thinks the number one use for those funds will be to hire reading interventionists.

“And a lot of it’s actually used, being used as replacement money, because they were hiring reading interventionists with federal funds,” he said. “Federal funds have gone away, and so they now want to keep their interventionists using these funds.”

Federal funds were provided to school districts and education through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. The funds, known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), to address needs arising from the pandemic and for ongoing recovery efforts afterward.

Alabama received $3.28 billion in ESSER funds. , 91.55% of the money has been expended. Recipients had until Sept. 30 to commit ESSER funds allocated under ARPA.

Lawmakers

Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, chair of the House education budget committee, said Thursday he could not comment on the budget until he spoke with Mackey about the proposal.

Garrett said that they have talked for years about ESSER funds being temporary.

“So that’s been something that’s not unexpected, and hopefully systems have planned accordingly,” he said.

A message was left with Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, chair of the Senate education budget committee.

Mackey said they have given schools money for assessments and professional development, but there’s a missing piece with the interventionists, who work with students. Certified academic language therapists (CALT) provide intervention for students with written language disorders, including dyslexia,

“There are many of those children who have reading difficulties, but they qualify for special education services, so they have another layer of service,” he said. “But if they don’t qualify for special needs, then they don’t have that extra layer, and that’s where these CALT therapists come in very handy.”

Mackey said he has spoken with several superintendents who have the money to retain their interventionists but will not replace them when they retire. Other superintendents cut all of their interventionist jobs this year, he said.

“So, we’re going to see a little bit of both, I think,” he said. “Over the next three years, what we’re going to see is that they’re going to be fewer employees, basically in the system.”

He said they will regain some number of employees back with the Numeracy Act, which aims to set similar goals for math as the Literacy Act does for reading. The superintendent was hopeful schools would get more money for middle grade reading.

“As time goes they’ll be able to move to other jobs, but there’s just no way for the state to really sustain all the money, all the federal money we’re losing,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

The Alabama state superintendent said Thursday afternoon that a diploma pathway focused on career readiness should not be used to remove lower achieving students from another diploma pathway.

Speaking to members of the Alabama State Board of Education during a work session, Eric Mackey told board members that students should not be forced to work toward a career-pathway focused diploma known as Diploma B just because they have lower ACT scores than others.

“There will be no ‘If your ACT score is 22 you’re on Option A, and if it’s 21 you’re on Option B,’” Mackey said. “And if anybody tries to do that, the furor of the state superintendent will come down on them, because that is not the purpose.”

The remarks came in a discussion over the diploma options of “A” and “B,” with “B” meeting a career-focused option required by the Legislature.

sponsored by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, the chair of the Senate Education Policy Committee, was part of a package of bills focused on workforce development in the 2024 regular legislative session. The legislation requires the board to create a diploma under the law’s goal of facilitating “the development of a career pathways diploma at the K-12 level that would enhance career and technical education opportunities for high school students who plan to enter the workforce immediately after graduation.”

Mackey said that diplomas issued by the schools will not note whether they are the “A” or “B” option. Both diplomas require 24 credits.

But the superintendent said he was worried about returning to an old educational model where people sent students to vocational schools just to get them out of the building.

“I’m telling you, if anybody tries to go back to that, there will be fire raining down on them because that is not what this is about,” he said. “This is about giving students opportunities.”

Chesteen said in a Thursday afternoon phone call that he agreed with Mackey after the Reflector summarized what was said at the work session.

“I think it’s one thing to pass a piece of legislation. I think the most important piece to that is the implementation. How is it going to affect the students? And that’s what I want to monitor very carefully,” he said.

Chesteen said “we can’t use it for an easy pathway out for these kids that don’t score well,” and they need to have a career pathway after they graduate.

Diploma “A” requires four credits each in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. Diploma “B” requires four credits in English Language Arts and Social Studies, but two credits in Mathematics and Science. Option “B” also requires three credits in Career and Technical Education to complete a whole sequence.

“We’re going to have kids that score a 32 on the ACT, that want to be Option B because they like working with their hands, and they want to go into robotics or such thing, and we’re going to have kids with with a 20 ACT, that are strivers, they want to do the Option A,” Mackey said.

The Board intends to announce the intent to adopt the changes in the October meeting.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

Alabama State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey said Wednesday that the Alabama State Department of Education’s computer systems had been breached last month, and that students and employees of the department may have been affected.

Speaking at a press conference in Montgomery, Mackey said  the breach took place on June 17. According to Mackey, the department’s  staff interrupted and stopped the attack.

Mackey said that there “was no question” that it was a denial of service attack to encrypt and steal data so they need to be paid off, but said officials were “still assessing exactly which data were taken.”

“What I would say is that to all parents, and all local and state education employees out there, they should monitor their credit, they should assume that there’s a possibility that some of their data were compromised,” he said.

Mackey said that the department does not keep direct deposit information.

“We do have information about which data possibly could be taken because we’re able to look and see which servers they were not able to get to in the time they were in there,” he said.

A foreign agent may have been involved, Mackey said, but he said that he could not provide more information.

“I shouldn’t say I’m not aware,” he said. “I’m not able to answer that.”

According to a statement from the department, the Alabama Attorney General, the Alabama Office of Information Technology and an independent contractor are working with the department to strengthen the cyber defenses and identify which data may have been compromised.

The statement said notification will be made to relevant parties in full compliance with laws and best practices.

The Department has launched a dedicated landing site – – and questions and comments can be sent to databreach@alsde.edu.

Mackey said that their websites will be down for “critical updates” beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday evening for several hours.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

Gov. Kay Ivey Monday reaffirmed her support for creating education savings accounts at a rally on the Alabama State Capitol steps on Monday.

But Ivey and other speakers gave few details of what they would support on the issue, which has already drawn pushback from State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey and other educators in the state.

“It will be sustainable, responsible and it’s how we will shape the future of education in Alabama,” Ivey told several dozen people at a rally for “School Choice Week,” a push to expand nontraditional public schools and publicly-funded private school options.

Education savings accounts are similar to vouchers in that they allow the use of money originally intended for public schools to be used for other items, including private school tuition. Vouchers send the money to an educational institution that the student attends. Education savings accounts go to the parents, who can use it for any number of services, including tuition, tutoring and counseling.

Ivey made expansion of education options The Alabama Legislature passed legislation expanding the Alabama Accountability Act, a scholarship program allowing students in low-performing schools to qualify for scholarships to private schools.

The governor told the crowd that her “top priority is ensuring education savings accounts bill crosses the finish line.”

What emerges from the session will be up to the Legislature, and likely Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville and Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, the chairs of the legislative committees overseeing the Education Trust Fund budget, which would fund any type of Education Savings Account. Messages seeking comment were left with Orr and Garrett on Monday morning; neither man could be seen at Monday’s rally.

Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Tuscumbia, filed , which would have allowed roughly $6,900 to follow a student. The bill, filed late in the session, did not become law.

Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, who filed a House version of Stutts’ bill, said Monday that he also supported an expansive education savings account option.

“It brings the free market back to education,” he said.

Stutts and Yarbrough tend to be some of the most conservative members of the Republican supermajority Legislature.

Yarbrough lined out his plans for “true school choice:” universal for all students; flexible spending ability; protects autonomy of private and home schools, while making traditional public schools’ curriculum transparent and is not an “attempt” to increase government spending.

“I believe that true school choice does not increase the size or scope of government,” he said.

The bill has not been filed as of Monday morning.

Students and parents spoke about their own experiences with education options in the state at the rally also.

June Henninger, a fifth grade student at the private Montgomery Christian School, said that she benefited from her experience at the school. She said she was grateful for her education and her teachers.

“I’m ready for my next school of my choice,” she said.

Montgomery Christian School students are on scholarships through donations and from scholarships

“School choice” can refer to a number of things, namely charter schools, vouchers and/ or education savings accounts.

, State Superintendent Eric Mackey said that he would want the money to go to schools and would require accountability.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

Jennifer Church, the lead special education teacher at Pelham Ridge Elementary School in Pelham, knows how much her colleagues do before stepping into a classroom.

“The referral meetings, eligibility meetings, IEP (individualized educational plan) meetings, the parent contacts just to organize all of that,” she said. “Writing the IEPS … providing the services to the students each day and then also helping with any general education assignments that need to be helped with in the classroom.”

And to keep special education teachers in place, the Alabama State Department of Education is asking the Legislature for a little bit more.

The department’s budget request includes a call for a stipend for special education teachers in the hopes of recruiting new teachers and retaining existing ones in areas with shortages.

Michael Sibley, spokesman for the department, said over email that the stipend amount requested is $5,000 and 20% ($1,000) benefits for each teacher.

A new teacher in Alabama with a bachelor’s degree would make A new teacher in Mississippi at a would make A new teacher in Georgia with a would make the base teacher salary in Tennessee is $42,000.

Special education is a term that covers a range of specialties, and special education teachers work with students with a range of needs. Some of those specialties have greater shortages than others. But the department for now but, for now, they are looking at a flat stipend across the board for special education teachers.

Mackey said the goal is to convince people to become special education teachers.

“This year, the Legislature provided a $1,000 stipend but it only went to special ed teachers who were paid for out of the state budget, foundation program budget,” he said.

This year’s request would cover teachers paid for by federal and local funds, as well. His goal is to provide the stipends for every special education teacher in the state.

Both Mackey and special education educators across the state have said that it’s important that specially trained teachers are the ones who work with special education students.

“If you’re a parent of a child that has these really severe needs, then you want to make sure you have the most qualified teacher working with them,” he said.

Akeliah Palmer, a collaborative resource and special education teacher at Edgewood Elementary School in Selma, said that she has about 30 students on her caseload.

She said that special education is hard to staff, so she hopes the stipend might help in recruiting.

“For them to keep the stipend would be a great idea because it may recruit more workers to come over to [special education],” she said.

Church said that forging personal relationships is also important for her role as a special education teacher.

“It’s not just one blanket plan for the children,” she said. “It’s individualized to each child. So we write these for their strengths, their weaknesses, the services that they need. It also has to be legally defensible.”

Cynthia Rysedorph, special education department chair at Mountain Brook High School, said that she thinks a stipend could encourage teachers to stay in the classroom.

“It was somewhat empowering, I think, just to feel recognized,” she said about this past year’s stipend..

Retention is critical, Mackey said, because of the volume of work special education teachers do.

“Because of special ed is obviously an area that’s intense focus, there is a lot of additional paperwork because the significance of some federal rules around that, so we often hear teachers say, ‘You know what, I’m going to leave teaching special ed, and just teach fourth grade, because it’s the same pay,’” he said.

Mackey said that the department is targeting teachers trained and certified to teach both special education and elementary general education. Some of those teachers might have gone to general education, and he wants the stipend to encourage them to come back to special education. He said those teachers are certified under collaborative special education.

For now, he said, the department is looking at a flat stipend, but Mackey left open the possibility of offering more in areas with particular shortages.

“That’s something certainly could be discussed,” he said. “Like, you know, the Legislature comes back and wants to talk about, ‘Well, what if we do a different amount for a child, for a teacher who has students with learning disabilities versus one with students who have medical disabilities?”

Last year, the Department asked for $68 million and received $4.6 million for special education stipends. This year, the department has requested for $34 million. House education budget chair Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, said in October he did not have any information about the funding this year going up as he has not seen the request or had discussions.

The Alabama State Board of Education’s budget request goes to the governor’s office. The governor makes a recommendation of her version that then goes to the Legislature who will approve their version of the budget.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

The percentage of Alabama third graders reading on grade level decreased 2% between 2022 and 2023, according to Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP) scores released by the Alabama State Department of Education on Thursday.

76% of Alabama third graders read on third-grade level this year, compared with 78% last year.  In 2021, 77% of third graders read on grade level.

State Superintendent Eric Mackey said there are reasons that the numbers might not have changed as they hoped. The test has changed since last year to focus more on the science of reading, so the test includes components that were not previously tested.

The superintendent also suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic might have had an effect. This year’s third graders were kindergarteners in the 2019-20 school year. After the first COVID-19 case in Alabama was confirmed that March, Alabama schools went to distance learning about two months before classes ended.

“Obviously, it’s not going the direction we want,” he said.

Alabama rose in rankings for the National Assessment of Education Progress, or “The Nation’s Report Card,” after many states lost ground due to the pandemic. However, the state still lags the country. 28% of Alabama fourth graders were deemed proficient or higher on the NAEP in comparison to the national average of 32%.

Second graders saw a smaller year-to-year decline. In 2023, 79% of second graders read at grade level, compared to 80% in 2022. In 2021, 78% of second graders read on grade level.

The third graders who make up these numbers are not going to be retained under the Literacy Act. Retention begins this upcoming school year.

Mackey said they are also planning to evaluate which textbooks were used in classrooms. He also said that some classrooms did not get textbooks until last November.

Bonnie Short, Alabama Reading Initiative director, said that the districts that had the greatest growth had used the LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training. is a professional training course that offers instruction for teaching the science of reading.

Not all LETRS trained districts did well, however, so she stressed that it was about implementation. She said that many districts with growth had varied instructional programming.

“What was not varied was professional learning,” she said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .