Where'd all the K-12 kids go?

Some 240,000 K-12 students around the nation disappeared from public-private schools during the pandemic (2019) and didn’t resume their studies elsewhere (2022). The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee found those students in 21 states and DC could not be accounted for. They didn't move out of state. They didn’t sign up for private school or home-school, according to publicly available data. In short, they’re missing. (The AP 02/09/23) COVID school enrollment shows thousands of missing kids, homeschooling (apnews.com) 

Gulf Coast Note: Only Louisiana was among the 21 states analyzed in this study. Alabama and Mississippi were not part of the study. But, here is the K--12 public-private enrollment in those two states. Mississippi: Fall 2019 (158,841), Fall 2021 (434,401) - Percent change -5.33% Alabama: Fall 2019 (724,178), Fall 2021 (725,894) - Percent change +0.24%.