Some 350,000 new students mean that K12 enrollment rates are recovering, but they still remain below pre-pandemic levels—2.09% lower, to be precise.

The Brazilian free-tailed bats entered the Salt Lake City school through small openings on the third floor of the school, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said.

And levels grew in every other state as families took matters into their own hands to ensure their child's needs were met, whether academically or emotionally. "Districts now have more staff than ever and fewer students," said Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab, in June. "So what happens next?"

These three East Coast states earned the top spots in this latest analysis, which ranks each state based on the quality of its public school systems.