Bay Area school enrollment plunges as families flee high-cost region

Bay Area schools have experienced the third largest decline in student enrollment in California over the past 10 years, as families left high-cost coastal areas for more affordable inland cities and states, new data shows. The region is expected to see an even larger loss over the next 10 years.

Data from the state’s Department of Education, released last month, shows school enrollment throughout California dropped by nearly 15,000 students for the 2023-24 school year, marking the seventh consecutive year of statewide declines.

Measured over the last 10 years, enrollment in Bay Area schools fell 8%, trailing only the Los Angeles and Sierra regions in the percentage of student losses, according to an analysis of the data by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit think tank based in San Francisco.

“What we saw happening during the pandemic and what we continue to see is that people migrated away from the really high-cost areas into places in California or outside of California that are more affordable,” said Heather Hough, executive director of the Policy Analysis for California Education, an independent, non-partisan research center based at Stanford University known as PACE. “We’re continuing to see growth in those inland places, which historically have been more affordable.”

Data from the state education department and demographic projections from the state indicate the region by 2033 will see an even larger loss, a 14% drop from current enrollment — bigger than the state’s projected 12% decline.

The findings spell more pain for local school districts. Several Bay Area districts, including San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified and San Jose’s Alum Rock, have already had to discuss merging or closing schools due to declining enrollment, limited resources and hefty budget deficits.

The Public Policy Institute analysis indicates that Santa Clara County experienced the largest drop in Bay Area school enrollment in the last 10 years, with a 15% decline, and is expected to drop an additional 18% by 2033.

San Francisco County experienced a 3% decline in the last 10 years but is expected to drop 16% by 2033. But Solano County, which saw a 6% drop since 2013, is expected to improve slightly with only a 3% decline over the next 10 years.

California leaders and experts said the statewide drop in student enrollment was less than projected and reflects a return to slower, pre-pandemic declines. The state’s Department of Finance had initially projected a loss of about 41,000 students.

“In the past few years, we’ve seen enrollment declines that have been — especially around COVID — worse than projected,” said Julien Lafortune, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute, who analyzed enrollment trends with the institute’s policy director, Laura Hill. “It’s kind of a return to what was a more normal period where big demographic factors are what’s driving enrollment trends and away from the movements around the pandemic.”

The state education department said this year’s data showed one significant bright spot — a doubling of enrollment in transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds, from around 75,000 in 2021-2022 to over 150,000 in 2023-24. That compares to a little over 370,000 students who were enrolled in regular kindergarten across the state for the 2023-24 school year, down from more than 400,000 the previous year.

The state is expanding pre-kindergarten to include all 4-year-olds in California by 2025-26. The expansion has essentially added a new grade to school districts and increased the number of enrolled students.

“I am very grateful to see this exciting outlook for our earliest learners,” Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, said in a news release announcing the data.

While transitional kindergarten’s boost in enrollment may soften the blow of statewide declines, educational experts warned that it doesn’t necessarily mean school districts are in the clear.

“It’s not like (school districts’) numbers in other grades aren’t going down, it’s just that their overall numbers are going up and they also have to teach one more grade,” Lafortune said. “That’s kind of different than having stable enrollment across … grades.”

Larger, nationwide demographic shifts in birthrates and immigration mean California schools will still have to brace for continued declines in enrollment long-term.

“This is the reality over the next 10 years,” said Hough from PACE, whose research is led by faculty directors at Stanford, the University of Southern California, UC Davis, UCLA and UC Berkeley. “The pandemic exacerbated a trend that was already happening and that created a lot of chaos for many school districts because seemingly overnight, they had these huge declines in population and had to scramble to adjust.

“The good news is that it seems that the rate has slowed,” Hough said. “But there are big decisions that will still be on the horizon, especially in these places where there is going to be a continued decline over the next 10 years.”

Lafortune and Hough said the projected declines in enrollment mean districts will face difficult choices around downsizing.

Earlier this year, San Francisco Unified School District announced a plan to consolidate schools for the 2025-26 school year due to strained resources.  Oakland Unified School District has also discussed merging 10 of its campuses by 2025 in an effort to resolve its nearly $23.6 million budget deficit.

And this spring, San Jose’s Alum Rock Union School District decided to close at least eight schools, saying the district doesn’t have the money to keep them all open.

“We can now look at the long-term decline and school districts can plan for that and make sure their budgets and their facilities are prepared for the reality of the students that they’re likely to have,” Hough said. “If districts know that they have those kinds of tough decisions on the horizon, they can start working now to engage the community and to build plans that really improve school quality, even while having to close schools and do other cost-saving measures.”