LA Unified School District launches citywide review to close campuses as student numbers fall
The district expects to announce which buildings will shut down after enrollment dropped 4% in the current year, a decline that follows a two-decade loss of more than 300,000 students.
By Paula Delgado ·
The Los Angeles Unified School District announced a citywide effort in September to identify buildings and campuses that will close. The district is facing a second consecutive school year with a 4% drop in enrollment. Board member Kelly Gonez said the cuts will be deep and painful. She noted that the student population is now roughly half the size it was 20 years ago.
National enrollment in public schools peaked in 2019. Federal data shows the number of students fell by roughly 1.5 million by the 2024 school year. The U.S. Department of Education projects enrollment will decline by at least another 2 million students by 2030. That represents a 7% national drop over roughly a decade.
The decline has two main drivers. Birth rates have fallen for decades, and the population of children under 18 dropped by 2.1 million between 2010 and 2025. The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement added a second pressure point. A study by the Migration Policy Institute found that 1.9 million people left the U.S. during the first 18 months of the second term.
Federal officials weakened restrictions that previously limited ICE operations near public schools. Gonez said many families went into hiding. The district predicted a 2% drop in enrollment but saw a 4% drop instead. In Texas, the number of children in classrooms fell by more than 76,000 last year. The Texas Education Agency attributed the majority of that loss to Hispanic children and children of immigrant families.
Miami-Dade and Broward County school districts lost roughly 30,000 children combined in a single year. The drop followed the July revocation of temporary protected status for Haitian refugees. In South Los Angeles, teacher Guadalupe Cardona reported that over 200 students did not show up on the first day of school. She said the school lost two teachers at the start of the year due to the changes in the community.
A June report from Bellwether and WestEd stated that 40 states are experiencing sustained enrollment declines. The report projected a loss of $11 billion in annual public school funding linked to falling numbers. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in an email that deportations make American classrooms less crowded. She cited a decline of 2.9 million in the foreign-born population from January 2025 to July 2026.
State officials in California released a study in August predicting the state could lose another 710,000 students over the next decade. The forecast assumes current trends in fertility and migration remain constant. ICE is currently arresting as many as 50,000 people each month. LAUSD will proceed with its review to determine which campuses will close.
