Enrollment Projected to Drop Again in Fall

By Helen Gao, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Feb. 13–SAN DIEGO — San Diego public school enrollment is expected to decline for the seventh straight year in September, yielding a potential loss of more than $12 million for the state’s second largest school district, according to a new forecast.

A report going to the school board today shows that district enrollment, including charter schools, will drop by 2,048 students to 129,767.

That represents a decrease of 1.6 percent from the fall 2006 enrollment of 131,815.

San Diego Unified is not alone. Other large urban districts statewide, such as Los Angeles Unified, Long Beach Unified and Santa Ana Unified, also are losing students. About half the districts in San Diego County are seeing declining enrollment and some are facing difficult decisions to close schools to save money. So far, San Diego Unified has not had any closures.

The precise financial loss to the San Diego district won’t be known until the state budget is adopted and enrollment figures are finalized, Chief Financial Officer Bill Kowba said. State funding is based on school attendance.

“You have two conflicting trends here: revenue down and costs up. That means you need to be very judicious in how we allocate and prioritize our funding,” Kowba said.

Roy MacPhail, director of instructional facilities planning, said school populations will continue to shrink into the next decade, and the decline probably won’t level off until 2013 or 2014.

MacPhail attributes the loss to fewer births and the region’s high housing costs, as well as the recent rash of condominium conversions that have displaced lower income families.

Some of the biggest losses in San Diego Unified the past six years have been in the southern and eastern parts of the city, which historically have had large concentrations of black and Filipino families.

The Filipino population decreased by 21.9 percent from 2000 to 2006, and the black population by 21.6 percent. White, Pacific Islander, American Indian and Indo-Chinese populations have also gone down.

However, some populations are growing. The number of other Asian students has grown by 13 percent the past six years and Latino students by 5.6 percent.

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