The Ventura County public school system has fewer students for the ninth straight school year, following the downward trajectory of county population.
New data released by the state’s Department of Education last week showed that just under 127,000 K-12 students are enrolled in the county’s 20 school districts for the 2022-23 school year, the lowest number since 1995.
The drop of nearly 1,300 students, 1% of total enrollment last year, is less than the loss of nearly 7,000 students over the previous two years. The numbers, which are reported annually on the first Wednesday in October, track overall enrollment in the state fell by 0.7% and with similar declines across the state.
Enrollment indirectly determines how much money schools receive from the state. Under the state’s attendance-based funding formula, districts can receive upwards of $9,000 per student per year. Most agencies factor enrollment expectations into their annual budget planning.
Cesar Morales, superintendent of the Ventura County Office of Education, said in an emailed statement that the smaller decline was “good news” in the face of rising housing costs, a lack of higher-paying jobs and the “lingering effects of the pandemic.”
But, he added in an interview on Thursday, “we’re steadily reviewing.”
variable county
State data indicated a 16% increase in kindergarten enrollment in the county along with a 2% increase in 11th grade enrollment.
But the exponential growth in kindergarten does not portend a long-term relief in enrollment. This year’s kindergarten class, which was 1,600 students larger than last year, has been boosted by several districts lowering age requirements for transitional kindergartens in line with State expansion programme.
The state Department of Education is currently enrolling transitional Kindergarten in the same class as Kindergarten. Morales said the county’s total includes about 3,400 transitional kindergartens, up 2,000 from last school year. County data shows that the number of regular kindergartens has already shrunk by 5%.
The constraint problems are consistent with data showing interruption shrinking and aging. By July 2022, the US Census reported last week, the county’s population was less than 833,000, the lowest number since at least 2013. Census data shows that the smaller population is relatively larger as well: only 22% of the county are children, down 3% over the past decade.
Analysts from School Services of California, a Sacramento-based consulting firm, For the Ventura Unified School District Officials said in 2021 that Ventura County will lose nearly 20% of its students by 2031, the largest drop of any county in the state except Los Angeles.
changes at the regional level
Recording bouts were affected differently across the county. Five K-8 school districts — Rio Elementary, Pleasant Valley, Ocean View, Mupu Elementary and Briggs Elementary — saw small increases, along with K-12 Simi Valley Unified, Moorpark Unified, and Fillmore Unified.
Hany Youssef, superintendent of Simi Valley, said the second increase in his district since 2003 is due to “a concerted effort to rebrand the district to make it more competitive.”
Youssef said the neighborhood initiated the project in 2015 to try to prevent families from moving to neighboring neighbourhoods: “We have lost the trust of our community.”
more:Schools compete for a shrinking student body in Ventura County
Budget-struggling Ojai Unified, which recently approved two school closures and dozens of layoffs, saw enrollment drop nearly 2%, but interim superintendent Cheryl Knox said the drop was smaller than expected. Knox said transitional Kindergarten enrollment helped “soften” the blow throughout the year.
The Oxnard Union High School District, one of the only districts in the county that has seen steady growth in recent years, lost students for the first time in a decade. Superintendent Tom McCoy said only the high school district was tracking enrollment in the K-8 districts that feed into its schools and expected the decline.
“It will only be worrisome if we don’t plan for it,” he said, adding that the region expects slight declines in the next three to four years.
Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America. reach him at [email protected] or 805-437-0236 and follow him on Twitter @tweet And @tweet. You can support this business with a tax-deductible donation to: Report on America.