This whole situation is hitting my former high school hard. One of my old football coaches passed away and I went to a viewing for him and while talking to the current football coach / athletic director he said that only 3 freshmen came out for football. I was like WHATTTT??? 😳 Back when I played at that same school you would have 20 freshmen minimum.
I guess the problem is even worse with the girls sports. Low participation rates.

Also there are about half as many kids in the school that there was for the previous generation.

Like you mentioned kids will say they have "anxiety" and will be homeschooled or take classes online. It's weird stuff and I have seen a lot of weird things lately.

I guess 70% of the students at the school are in a single parent household.

I just think there is oftentimes no direction and you don't get the multiple siblings coming up through the system and the kid wanting to play ball like their big brother did.

Then they see they can get more attention and fame if they pretend to be a girl and dance around on TikTok.

I think some of these smalls schools might end up having to consolidate again. In the 60s the township schools consolidated and now they might have to consolidate further.