Schools in Los Angeles County, and especially the LA Unified School District, are seeing the steepest enrollment declines in California, based on new state data posted Thursday.
Across California, enrollment declined 1.3% from last year — about 75,000 students — which is about average compared to the 39 states that have so far released enrollment figures for the current school year. Based on a California Department of Education analysis, all 39 reported enrollment declines. States with larger percentage declines include Hawaii, New Hampshire and New York.
“The decline in school enrollment in California reflects a national trend,” said Elizabeth Sanders, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. Additionally, “data shows that some California families are relocating to less expensive suburban communities like Elk Grove and Vacaville.“
The statewide figures are related to declining birth rates nationwide, although other factors at the local level, including in Los Angeles County, are also at play, such as housing costs, declining immigration and aggressive federal efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
Thomas J., director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard. “There are some surprises in these figures, but the decline itself should not be surprising,” Kane said. “A decline in the birth rate inevitably means a decline in enrollment. The size of the decline should be manageable — but only if schools adjust their plans now rather than waiting.”
Typical ways to deal with declining enrollment include closing schools and reducing staff numbers. Both are painful measures for school communities and have been opposed in the Los Angeles Unified School District and elsewhere.
This week, LAUSD officials barely ended the strike by agreeing to significant staff raises, as well as canceling nearly 200 layoffs and hundreds of new hires for counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The school system has not identified any campuses that may be closed.
Los Angeles County, with 80 school districtshas far more students than any other California county, so its impact on statewide enrollment will always be significant. Last year saw a decline in enrollment, leading to a decline in statewide numbers.
Los Angeles County Public School enrollment for the 2025–26 academic year decreased by 32,953 students, or 2.6%, from the previous year to 1,242,816. This decline would be equivalent to the disappearance of the entire Moreno Valley Unified School District, one of the 25 largest school systems in the state.
The decline in the county represents 44% of the statewide decline. By comparison, the county accounts for about 22% of the state’s students.
For LA Unified, the decline was 16,765 students, or 4.5%. LA Unified accounts for 22.4% of the statewide shortfall. The district serves approximately 7% of the state’s public school students.
According to state numbers, LA Unified enrollment is 353,065 and was 369,830 last year.
LA Unified has a different and larger enrollment figure based on a different tabulation system, but the percentage drop is similar to the state’s calculations — and it was no surprise when district officials were asked for their feedback.
District officials also noted state data showing enrollment is down in homeschooling, private schools and charter schools. Charters are privately run public schools.
“Los Angeles Unified’s enrollment trends reflect the same broad demographic shifts affecting school systems in California and across the country,” officials said in a statement. “Enrollment in all types of schools has declined this year, driven primarily by long-term factors such as declining birth rates and changes in migration patterns due to the cost of living.”
“Like other large urban districts, Los Angeles Unified is dealing with additional local pressures, including housing affordability and the impact of federal immigration enforcement policies, that have contributed to more pronounced decline in our communities.”
Critics of the school district say that the school system’s management itself bears some of the blame, although demographers support the district’s analysis.
Stanford University professor Thomas S. Dee said, “It is very possible that part of this decline is due to the increasing scale and intensity of immigration enforcement.” “I’ve found in prior research that immigration enforcement reduces enrollment by causing some people to flee and deterring newcomers.”
In terms of raw numbers, Santa Ana Unified, which lost 2,291 students, follows L.A. Unified in terms of enrollment decline. This is a decline of 6.4% from the previous year. Immigration enforcement has also had a huge impact on families in that school system.
School systems with higher enrollments include Elk Grove Unified, which gained 1.7% to 1,097 students. Vacaville Unified enrolled 557 more students, an increase of 4.9%. Counties with high enrollment include San Joaquin, Placer, and Sutter.
Mixed picture for private and home schooling
There was a year-on-year decline in all types of schools.
Schools operated by traditional school districts declined 1.4%, roughly equal to the statewide number. It shows that the majority of students, about 5.73 million, are in public schools.
Charter schools statewide declined slightly, about 0.3%.
The number of homeschooled students declined by 3.7%. For data purposes, home school is defined as a private school with fewer than six students. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were just under 25,000 homeschoolers in the 2018–19 school year. In 2020-21, at the time of campus closures due to the pandemic, this number reached nearly 60,000. The current figure is 49,365.
Private school enrollment declined 6.6% compared to the previous year; It is now slightly lower than before the pandemic.
In 2018–19, private school enrollment reached 500,000. Enrollment dropped at the beginning of the pandemic, then peaked in 2022-23. Current enrollment is 461,650 students, a decrease of 32,814 from last year.
In the bigger picture, Stanford’s Dee said, “We are seeing consistent evidence that families who left the public school system during the pandemic have not actually returned.”
UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller recently focused on the decline of private schools, saying that “fewer parents appear to be able to afford private schools.”
He also drew on another statistic — an increase in the number of families taking advantage of transitional kindergarten, which became fully available to 4-year-olds statewide for the current school year.
The enrollment figure is 213,313, an increase of 20.1% from the previous year.
“Free vaccines are growing in popularity, especially among middle-income Angelenos who previously faced steep child care bills,” Fuller said. “The downside is that many nonprofit preschools are devastated after losing their 4-year-olds.”
Overall, the falling birth rate is “wreaking havoc on the fragile vitality of public schools,” Fuller said. “Ironically, the ever-increasing educational attainment enjoyed by young Latina mothers in particular leads to fewer children being born.”
