Electives Are the First to Go — Until You Need to Sell the School

There’s something so insulting — and so predictable — about what’s happening at my school.

We’re facing two major, interconnected problems:
Low standardized test scores
Drastically declining enrollment

And what do these issues have in common?
They’re being handled with decisions that are deeply misaligned with reality, research, and basic integrity.

Let’s start with the truth:
Our school has lost more than half its students over the last 9 years. From 700 to 301.
That’s not a typo. That’s a crisis.
And the students we’re losing? They’re often high-performing kids from affluent families — students whose test scores wouldn’t budge no matter which school they attended.

Study after study confirms this:
Kids from high-resource environments tend to succeed no matter the variables.
That doesn’t mean we stop providing excellent instruction.
It means that test scores aren’t the reason families are leaving.

So why are they leaving?

Because our school doesn’t feel special anymore.
Because it’s being stripped of the very things that make learning joyful, immersive, and memorable.
Because the electives — the heart of student engagement — are the first to go.

When scores dropped again this year, what was the first thing our principal did?

Cut even more electives.
Eliminated the full-time art teacher.
Dismantled creative programs and reassigned them to teachers who had “extra time” because their academic sections didn’t fill.
(Yes, “anyone can teach art” apparently.)

And yet — when it came time for Open House, what were we told?

“Focus on our electives!”
“Highlight all the hands-on, exciting options we offer students!”
“That’s what families want to see!”

Oh.
So… electives are worthless.
Until you need to sell the school.

And this week? The district wants to make a promo video for our school.
Guess what the principal asked for?

“Let me know about any engaging, hands-on, fun classroom activities for the video!”

Spoiler:
They don’t want a video of benchmark testing.
They don’t want to highlight silent worksheets or stressed-out staff.
They want the vibrant moments.
The projects.
The joy.
The sparkle.

They want to sell the illusion of a thriving, dynamic school —
while gutting the very programs that created that energy in the first place.

This is gaslighting at scale.

You don’t get to defund electives and then market them like they’re your school’s signature strength.
You don’t get to dismantle creativity, joy, and innovation all year long and then scramble to put it back together for the brochure.
You don’t get to silence teacher voices, devalue student passion, and call it a “scheduling decision.”

Families are not leaving because we lack rigor.
They’re leaving because we lack vision.
Because we’ve turned our school into a compliance factory instead of a place of belonging and growth.

If electives are your marketing strategy, they should also be your investment strategy.
If they’re what draws families in, they should also be what grounds your schedule.
If students light up in those classes, stop extinguishing them.

It’s time we get aligned with the truth.
Not just the test scores.
Not just the talking points.

But the actual experience of being here.

If you care about enrollment, engagement, and community trust, then start listening to the people who’ve been shouting this for years:

Electives aren’t extras. They’re essentials.

Stop treating them like decorations.
Start treating them like foundations they are.