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NEWS RELEASE

CSUN Researchers Say San Fernando Valley K-12 Enrollment
is Dropping and the Drop May Continue in the Near Future

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Feb. 27, 2007) — Kindergarten through 12th grade enrollment dropped 3.5 percent in the San Fernando Valley last year, and Cal State Northridge researchers expect the decline to continue as the children of baby boomers grow up.

Researchers with Northridge’s San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center compared the Valley’s enrollment trends to those of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Los Angeles County and California, using data in the 2005 American Community Survey recently published by the Census Bureau for the newly designated San Fernando Valley County Census District. While K-12 enrollment also dropped for the last two years in LAUSD and Los Angeles County, the percentage of decreases were substantially less than those in the Valley. California’s K-12 enrollment dropped by a mere 0.2 percent last year but increased the previous year.

The researchers attributed the San Fernando Valley enrollment decrease in part to a population bulge from the children of the baby boom generation.

"The baby boom population bulge has been working its way through the school-aged population and shows up clearly in the age distribution of the Valley’s population," said economics professor Daniel Blake, director of the center. "While the same bulge in the 10 to 14 year age group appears in other areas, it is somewhat more pronounced in the San Fernando Valley relative to Los Angeles County, California, and the U.S."

Specifically, the Valley’s K-12 enrollment dropped 3.5% last year, after falling 2.4% in 2004-05, according to the CSUN researchers. The enrollment figures covered both public and private schools. Both sectors suffered losses.

The largest percentage drop occurred in the Valley’s private schools, which lost 4.5% in 2005-06 after a 3.3% loss in 2004-05. Valley LAUSD schools ranked second, with a 3.8% loss in 2005-06 following a 2.4% drop the previous year. The Glendale Unified School District also lost over 2% of its enrollments each year. The Burbank Unified School District suffered a somewhat smaller loss in enrollment while the Las Virgenes Unified School District’s enrollment dropped by only fractional percentages each year.

These drops followed a long period of rising K-12 enrollment, which peaked in 2002-03 and remained roughly constant in 2003-04. The CSUN researchers expect K-12 enrollments in the Valley to continue to fall in the near future.

Blake said the key to the student population decline lies in the segmented enrollment trends for the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

"The enrollment pipeline begins at the elementary level, which feeds the middle school level, which in turn feeds the high schools," he said. "Valley elementary enrollment peaked in 2000-2001, middle school enrollment peaked in 2003-04, and high school enrollment peaked in 2004-05. Until we see an upturn or at least stable enrollments at the elementary level, we are going to continue to experience declining K-12 enrollments in the Valley.

"Perhaps the silver lining here," he added, "is that our school building program will catch up with enrollments, and beyond that point we may be able to physically accommodate smaller class sizes which have proven more educationally effective."

Blake also noted that the Valley’s community colleges may be the next to see their enrollments peak, "although any peak that does show up at that level is expected to be much more muted because not all high school students go on to college and the community colleges draw from a broad spectrum of age groups."

Housed in CSUN’s College of Business and Economics, the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center collects, assembles, analyzes, and disseminates economic, social, and demographic information of the San Fernando Valley and related areas. Cal State Northridge’s College of Business and Economics is home to several nationally recognized programs where students gain valuable hands-on experience working alongside faculty members and business professionals in a variety of areas.

To view charts chronicling K-12 enrollment in the San Fernando Valley, click here.