After the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department’s mask mandate went into effect, Benzie County Central Schools’ Board of Education worried many families would take their kids out of school.
If that had happened, the district could have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Superintendent Amiee Erfourth said they did have a net loss of 55 students, but it was close to what they had projected before the mask mandate.
She said most of the elementary students who left didn’t opt for another school in the area.
“They truly had moved away,” she said.
Erfourth said she knew of five families who pulled their kids from the district because of the mandate.
“Those ones that were very vocal, many of them, I think, still stayed,” she said.
Erfourth said the district did have a conservative population estimate for the year. It stopped hiring for a teaching position because of the drop in elementary school enrollment.
