Chicago Public Schools enrollment drops by 6,000 students as years-long decline slows

Enrollment at Chicago Public Schools has continued its steady decline this year, dropping by more than 6,000 students this fall, officials announced Friday.

An official count taken Sept. 30, the 20th day of school, revealed 355,156 students in the country’s third largest school system — a 1.7% drop from the 361,314 kids in the system last year. The count was taken more than a month before the data was released.

The decline was slightly smaller than years past, when there was about a 10,000-student drop each of the previous three years. Enrollment stood at 371,382 in 2017 and 381,349 in 2016.

The number of students has been falling for the past eight years and is down a whopping 47,500 kids from 402,681 in June 2011 — just after former Mayor Rahm Emanuel first took office.

CPS remains the country’s third largest school system but only a tight margin separates it from the fourth largest, Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida, which is also shrinking. As of April, Miami-Dade’s pre-K-12 enrollment measured 350,040.

Racial and ethnic demographics also released by CPS on Friday showed the district is still made up about 90% by students of color, but with about 5,000 fewer black students than last year. About 40% of students are black, while 46.6% are Hispanic, 10.8% are white and 4.2% are Asian.

Despite the overall drop, the number of students at CPS-run high schools remained about the same this year. Grades 11 and 12 in particular saw slight increases since last year, a promising change as district graduation rates rise.

At charter schools, there was a 2.1% decline in enrollment with 1,154 fewer charter school students than last year, down from 54,569 to 53,415. The year before, charters lost half as many kids.

The biggest drop came at district-run elementary schools, which saw enrollment go down 2.3%, or 4,793 kids, from 207,032 to 202,239 — an alarming trend for the district as fewer families start their young children in the system.

The district hopes that could be offset by the fact that kindergarten numbers plateaued, which could stabilize enrollment in the years to come.

“Especially looking that we have more students enrolling in kindergarten, and we’ve seen an increase there, that’s really encouraging,” CPS Chief Education Officer LaTanya McDade said.

“I think a lot of the things that we’ve done are really around making sure that we are focusing on having high-quality options in every community and every neighborhood. I think that’s really important,” she said.

CPS is also counting on a rise in pre-K students spurred by a new universal pre-K program started by Emanuel.

The district is phasing out half-day 3-year-old pre-K in favor of more full-day 4-year-old pre-K seats. That’s led to the overall number of students in all district-run pre-K programs staying about the same, dropping by only 200 students, but with more students in 4-year-old pre-K — up 11% to 14,300.