Santa Cruz County public schools projected to have steepest enrollment decline in California

Santa Cruz County’s public schools are set to see enrollment drop by more than 21% over the next decade, the steepest decline of any county in California, according to recent projections by the state.

The dramatic projections recently released by the California Department of Finance are escalating concerns among education leaders across the county. During a meeting late last month, the county’s 10 superintendents discussed how to work together to prepare for a sharp drop in students in the coming years.

“We want to make sure that we are serving as many of our students as possible and we’d like to keep our students in our county and attending our schools,” said County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah. “That’s something that we’re committed to.”

Santa Cruz County is hardly alone – districts are grappling with declining enrollment across the state. The latest report from the Department of Finance shows statewide K-12 public enrollment is projected to decline by 661,500 students, to 5.191 million, in the next 10 years if fertility rates and migration patterns remain the same.

After Santa Cruz County, Los Angeles County projects to see the second-highest rate of decline at 21.2% – losing 278,000 students. Not all counties and districts will see declines. North of Sacramento, Placer County – which has the largest projected increase in county enrollment – is expected to gain 6,300 students between 2022-23 and 2032-33.

For Santa Cruz, the 21.4% decline would result in a loss of 8,126 students – from 38,025 students in the 2022-23 school year to 29,899 students by 2032-33.

Sabbah said this past year saw a decline of about 2%, continuing the trend of the past several years. But the state projections show that trend accelerating, with enrollment soon expected to start dropping by 3% annually across the county.

However, the impacts will vary greatly for different parts of the county. And a rush of new housing development underway could change the trajectory for some schools.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District is likely going to have to discuss closing one or two schools because of the drop in enrollment over the next few years, district leaders said. Meanwhile, Santa Cruz City Schools’ has already adjusted its school boundaries in anticipation of an influx of students thanks to thousands of new housing units under construction in the city’s core, even though the state’s report projects the district’s enrollment will decline slightly.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District is estimated to see its student population decline by 30.8% by 2031-32, or more than 5,700 students. The decline is a continuation of the trend of the past decade or so. Since 2015, the district’s enrollment has declined by about 25%.

At this point, the enrollment declines haven’t directly affected staffing or led to layoffs, Interim Superintendent Murry Schekman said. The district has chosen instead to not fill vacancies from teachers who have left.

However, Schekman said if the decline continues at this rate, the district will have to make much more difficult decisions.

“Certainly the suggestion of closing schools will come up and whether the community can accept that – certainly an individual school’s community will be very upset,” he said. “It’s something that the district needs to give close consideration to. There’s been discussion of closing maybe one or two schools – very limited discussion – and only at the district level.”

Closing schools would help the district save money and perhaps contribute to enough funding to build workforce housing to improve teacher retention, he said.

Schekman emphasized that the district has only had high-level discussions about closing schools and has not made any decisions. He added that no school would likely close within the next three to four years – assuming enrollment continues to drop at the same rate as in recent years.

Schekman scheduled a study session with the district’s governing board Feb. 29, when a consulting firm will present on the challenges of declining enrollment and potential solutions.

“There’s some things that the district will learn about and deal with, but hopefully make decisions [on] soon, that may hit reality in three or four years,” he said. “You’ve got to plan ahead when closing the school. You don’t just do it overnight.”

While the state’s recent enrollment report has raised alarm, local officials say it’s still very unclear what might happen.

The county and its municipalities are all preparing to add thousands of new state-mandated housing units – something the state doesn’t factor into its projections. For example, the state is requiring that the city of Santa Cruz add 3,700 units by 2031. How many of those units will be filled by families with children remains a big question.

Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro said it’s going to be very difficult for the district to make accurate projections in the coming years.

“We’re working with a demographer to get our projections for next year and we’ll build our staffing on that,” she said. “But it’s highly unlikely that any of our projections are going to be accurate in the next couple years because it’s so volatile, and there’s so much that’s new.”

The Santa Cruz City Schools high school district is projected to see a 6.6% enrollment decline, while the elementary district is projected to see a 5.4% decline. However, this year showed district officials how things could play out differently: The district’s elementary, middle and high schools all ended up having more students than projected.

The district had planned to eliminate seven teaching positions but ended up having to add an extra teacher instead because of the unexpected increase in enrollment at its elementary schools.

It saw 152 more students enroll in elementary schools than expected. Bay View and Westlake elementaries were two of the most affected schools.

For the secondary level, or middle and high schools, the district saw 190 more students enroll than it expected.

Munro added that given the density of housing planned for the school district, officials have changed their plans from preparing for declining enrollment to figuring out how to balance the potential influx of students. Earlier this month, the school board voted to make a minor boundary adjustment to split the potential new students expected to be living in the newly constructed developments downtown among multiple schools.

“I think it’s gonna be really tough in our district to make accurate projections because of all of the projected housing development of the next three to five years,” said Munro.

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