There are fewer kids in classrooms across the Bay Area and California.
Regional and statewide school enrollment numbers continue to drop, though less precipitously than during the first years of the pandemic, according to data released Wednesday by the California Department of Education.
The state now has 5.8 million TK-12 students enrolled, down nearly 7% from the 6.2 million the state had a decade ago.
“The overall slowing enrollment decline is encouraging,” said Tony Thurmond, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. “While we have more work to do, the dramatic growth in [transitional kindergarten] is inspiring and shows that providing rigorous and quality programs can be a key ingredient to bringing more families back to our schools.”
While statewide changes in enrollment have settled back to the annual drops typical of pre-pandemic years, around half a percent each year, Santa Clara County continues to see the Bay Area’s most notable drops, with the county losing between 1% and 2% of students each of the last three years.
A declining birth rate, a population that is just returning to pre-pandemic highs, and changes in immigration patterns have all contributed to California’s shrinking youth population, and high housing costs have pushed many families out of the region.
The county’s declining enrollment has been a problem since before the pandemic, with Santa Clara County losing students each of the past 10 years, with the most dramatic drops of 3.7% the first full school year of the pandemic, and 4.9% the next year.
This year, the county’s enrollment was around 231,000, down over 16% percent from the 2014-15 school year, when the county had 277,000 students. San Mateo County has had the second biggest drop since 2014-15 in the region, with nearly 12% fewer students than a decade ago.
Only two counties in the Bay Area have seen year-over-year enrollment gains since the pandemic disrupted nearly every aspect of life for Bay Area residents, triggering an exodus from the region, and drops in the overall population.
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San Francisco is the one county in the region that saw an enrollment gain from the 2023-24 school year to this school year. The foggy city also had the region’s most dramatic pandemic-era enrollment drops, but has shown slight increases in enrollment in each of the last three years, though the number of students is still 5,000 fewer than the year before the pandemic.
Contra Costa County is the only other county that has seen some positive growth in enrollment, with last year’s enrollment a 0.1% increase from the year before, and this year showing a tiny 0.8% decrease.
