For the last few years, St. Paul Public Schools saw significant annual declines in enrollment, with more than a thousand students leaving the district each year starting in 2019.
That trend now appears to be easing, according to 2023-2024 enrollment data released Thursday by the school district. The number of pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students sat at 33,062 as of Oct. 1 last year — a loss of 48 students from the year before.
In October 2022, St. Paul schools had 33,110 students across its 69 schools. Losses this year are significantly lower than those seen in the pandemic years, when the district saw declines of 1,000 to 1,500 students a year.
Struggling to keep students
St. Paul schools have struggled in recent years to keep students. The state’s second-largest school district had more than 37,000 students enrolled just over a decade ago and has seen a significant slide since. Competition from charter schools — and to a lesser extent enrollment in neighboring districts, private schools and homeschooling — have contributed to the decline.
The district also says changes to school start times and a decline in the number of children born in St. Paul have contributed to fewer students.
As declining enrollment continues to ease, St. Paul schools noted a few other trends, including growth in immersion schools and schools with a focus on immigrant communities.
Adams Spanish Immersion School and Jie Ming Mandarin Immersion Academy, as well as LEAP High School, which serves 14 to 22-year-olds new to the U.S., saw growth.
Thursday’s enrollment figures include pre-K through 12th grade students and all early childhood programs. When pre-k seats not eligible for state funding are cut out of the picture, the district lost 179 students. Eligible seats include K-12 students, as well as some pre-k and early childhood special education students.
“This is a considerable improvement over last year’s decline of 1,116 and within our definition of stabilizing (decline of 1.5% or less),” district spokesperson Erica Wacker said in an email. “Any way you slice it, this data represents a significant step in the right direction.”
‘Respect and reflect’
In a news release on the new numbers, Superintendent Joe Gothard said the leveling-off of declining enrollment is in part due to district efforts to invest in education programs that “respect and reflect” people served by the district, and free all-day pre-K at 30 St. Paul schools.
The district also spent $30,000 last year on efforts to attract families to its schools and plans to spend an additional $300,000 to boost enrolment at six schools.
Gothard also noted the size of this year’s kindergarten class — 2,469, according to the district. It’s the first increase in the number of kindergarteners in a decade.