The DeKalb County Board of Education is taking an unusual step to deal with declining enrollment: It hired a company to get families back into the public school system.

The state’s third-largest school system has classroom space for close to 20,000 more students. It was talking about possibly closing two dozen schools, but hit the brakes on that discussion for now.

In the meantime, DeKalb will pay up to a half million dollars in one year to Caissa K12 — a Tennessee-based lobbyist that started helping school systems fight declining enrollment in 2016.

“We understand the challenges around declining enrollment, and some of those things we know the district has no control over: That’s declining birth rates, that’s people being priced out of housing in their areas,” said Adrian Bond, the president of Caissa K12. “One thing you can do is control the outreach. You can control the messaging.”

The company essentially runs a grassroots campaign for the district. They make phone calls, send texts and emails, place digital ads and have face-to-face conversations with families that used to attend public schools but opted to switch to homeschooling or private school.

The goal is to show them all that traditional public schools have to offer so they’ll re-enroll their student — or enroll them for the first time.

As for payment, the district will only pay if it works. The state counts students on a date in early October. DeKalb will pay $890 per student that is enrolled by that date as a result of the company’s efforts.

DeKalb officials say it makes fiscal sense: The district gets more than $20,000 per student each year between local, state and federal funding. The agreement means an “immediate positive return on investment,” said a memo to the school board.

At least one board member disagreed about the benefits.

“I’m just not really comfortable with the idea of trying to market to families to get them to come back,” board member Whitney McGinniss said before voting against the one-year contract earlier this month. “I feel that’s not being respectful to parents.”

DeKalb County Board of Education member Whitney McGinniss — pictured listening during a DeKalb County School Board meeting in April — said she was against the idea of "trying to market to families to get them to come back" to DeKalb public schools. (Jason Getz/AJC)

But enrollment has shrunk by roughly 10% in DeKalb in the last decade — a margin that poses both emotional and financial problems for the district. It’s a national issue, but the effects are distinctly local. Underenrolled schools cost more to operate, and the debate about whether to close them can roil a community.

“Absolutely, we believe that families should have the right to determine the best educational option for their child,” Bond said. “We also wholeheartedly believe that across the board, traditional public schools offer the best option for most families.”

The district agreed to share three years’ worth of student withdrawal data with the company, as well as lists of students who were enrolled by the district but did not attend school. The company could also find students to target from other sources. The contract also has a confidentiality clause saying the company agrees to keep student information confidential and can only use it for the agreed-upon purpose.

Cassia K12 works with school systems in 27 states, including those in Birmingham, Alabama; Denver; Orlando, Florida; and Newark, New Jersey.

Atlanta Public Schools hired Caissa K12 in 2025. The company reported it brought back about 250 students, representing an estimated $2.3 million in state and local funding.