# Enrollment Decline Hits Harder in San Fernando Valley
LAUSD enrollment drops 4.5% as immigration enforcement and declining birth rates drive California's largest school enrollment decline since the pandemic, with 16,765 students lost and families moving to more affordable regions.
# Enrollment Decline Hits Harder in San Fernando Valley
Los Angeles Unified School District lost 16,765 students last year, representing a 4.5% drop in enrollment according to new state data. The decline is part of a statewide crisis affecting California schools as birth rates fall and immigration enforcement creates uncertainty among families.
Los Angeles County public school enrollment for the 2025-26 academic year decreased by 32,953 students, or 2.6%, to 1,242,816. That drop would equate to the disappearance of the entire Moreno Valley Unified School District.
The county decrease represents 44% of the statewide decline. By comparison, the county comprises about 22% of the state's students. For L.A. Unified, the decline was 16,765 students, or 4.5%. L.A. Unified's share of the statewide decrease is 22.4%. The district has about 7% of the state's public school students. Per the state numbers, the L.A. Unified enrollment is 353,065 and was 369,830 last year.
Declining school enrollment in California reflects the national trend, said Elizabeth Sanders, a spokesperson for the state Department of Education. In addition, the data shows that some California families are relocating to less expensive suburban communities like Elk Grove and Vacaville.
LAUSD officials pointed to multiple factors driving the enrollment decline, including housing costs and federal immigration policies.
Like other large urban districts, Los Angeles Unified is also navigating additional local pressures, including housing affordability and the impact of federal immigration enforcement policies, which have contributed to a more pronounced decline in our communities, LAUSD officials said in a statement.
Stanford University professor Thomas S. Dee said it is quite possible that some of this decline is driven by the increased scale and intensity of immigration enforcement. I've found in prior research that immigration enforcement reduces enrollment by causing some to flee and deterring newcomers, he told the Los Angeles Times.
Immigrant families have been afraid to send their students to school, said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, a coalition of 40 organizations focused on the educational success of English learners. School staff have tried to assure families that it is safe for their children to go to school, but some families have opted to self-deport or simply leave the state or region for a safer place, she said.
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who is on administrative leave, has blamed the decline on a climate of fear and instability created by the ongoing immigration crackdowns, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Immigration to the state declined from 312,761 to 109,278 between 2024 and 2025, according to the United States Census. The number of newcomer students in LAUSD has dropped over the past two years after reaching a peak of 5% of the student population in 2023-24.
The declining enrollment was one of the main reasons for the budget deficits that led Los Angeles Unified to issue 3,200 layoff notices in February, according to district officials. The layoffs are expected to actually result in 650 job losses.
Both are painful measures for school communities and have been resisted in the Los Angeles Unified School District and elsewhere. This week, LAUSD officials just barely headed off a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises as well as by rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The school system has not identified campuses that could be closed.
The enrollment drop affected all sectors of education. Charter schools dropped slightly statewide, about 0.3%. The number of students being homeschooled dropped 3.7%. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in the 2018-19 school year, there were just under 25,000 homeschoolers. The number peaked in 2020-21, at the height of the pandemic campus closures, at nearly 60,000. The current figure is 49,365.
Private school enrollment dropped 6.6% compared with last year. It's now a little less than before the pandemic. In 2018-19, private school enrollment approached 500,000. Enrollment dropped early in the pandemic, then peaked in 2022-23. The current enrollment is 461,650 students, a decrease of 32,814 from last year.
Fewer parents appear able to afford private schools, said UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller, who focused on the recent private school decline.
The drop in enrollment was offset somewhat by a 20.1% increase in students attending transitional kindergarten, after the state fully implemented enrollment for all 4-year-old students this school year. An additional 36,000 children were enrolled in transitional kindergarten this year, bringing the total to 213,313.
Free TK is growing in popularity, especially among middle-income Angelenos who earlier faced daunting child-care bills, said UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller. The downside is that scores of nonprofit preschools have gone under after losing their 4-year-olds.
Hispanic students, who make up 56% of California's student population, had the biggest loss in student enrollment, but not the largest percentage. The number of Hispanic students dropped by 48,064 or 1.48%. The number of white students dropped by 31,076, or 2.68%.
The number of English learners also dropped by 8.2%, although the decline could be attributed, in part, to students being reclassified as proficient in English.
There are counties and regions in California where theres actually a sharp increase in school enrollment, and were seeing a direct correlation there between economies that are livable for families and where students are enrolling in school, said Elizabeth Sanders. And then of the students who remain, those families are moving to areas that are more affordable for them to live.
The seven counties with the largest increases in enrollment this year are San Joaquin County, 842. Placer County, 841. Sutter County, 802. Butte County, 200. San Benito County, 146. Glenn County, 82. And Yuba County, 58.
Elk Grove Unified grew by 1,097 students, or 1.7%, making it the district with the largest enrollment gain in the state. Vacaville Unified enrolled 557 more students, a 4.9% increase.
Nationwide K-12 school enrollment has declined by 2.3% or 1.18 million students over the past five years, according to the Education Commission of the States. National projections predict that the country will lose another 2.7 million students by 2031.
All 39 states that released enrollment data for this school year have experienced a decline. About half of the states had larger enrollment losses than California.
Declining birth rates inevitably mean declining enrollment. The size of the decline should be manageable but only if schools adjust their plans now, rather than wait, said Thomas J. Kane, director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard.
The enrollment crisis plays out against a backdrop of local school board elections. District 6 stretches across the east San Fernando Valley taking in Sylmar, San Fernando, Mission Hills, Pacoima, Arleta, North Hills East, Panorama City, Sun Valley, North Hollywood, Toluca Lake, Shadow Hills, Lake View Terrace, Sunland and Tujunga.
LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez is running unopposed in her bid to succeed Bob Blumenfield in the San Fernando Valley's District 3 City Council seat. The election guides note that L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment and many campuses. Heightened federal immigration enforcement has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom, according to the Los Angeles Times.
This article was generated with AI assistance.