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Pleasanton Unified School District has lost approximately 700 students over the past five years, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels, according to an annual enrollment presentation delivered at a recent Board of Trustees meeting.
According to the report, enrollment at PUSD fluctuated over a five-year period spanning 2017 to 2022, but has dropped off significantly over the past two years. Peak enrollment during that same period was 14,958, with an increase of 112 students during the 2018-19 school year, then dropping off every year since.
A demographer’s enrollment figures from January 2021 projected an additional approximately 400 students – a total of 14,403 students – for districtwide enrollment in fall 2021. The district originally anticipated receiving 5,975 students for elementary instruction this year, but there are currently 5,677 students enrolled in elementary at PUSD (about 300 fewer than was expected).
When the pandemic hit during the 2019-20 school year, 102 students unenrolled from PUSD, and since then has lost nearly 800 more students. Last year 414 more students left the district, followed by another 376 students during the current school year.
Elementary enrollment peaked with 6,252 students enrolled in grades 1 to 5 in the 2018-19 school year. There are 5,677 elementary students currently enrolled for the 2021-22 school year at PUSD.
Middle school enrollment has declined steadily since 2016, when 3,715 students were enrolled in middle school. When schools reopened for in-person learning last year, 3,412 students were enrolled in middle school at PUSD – a slight decrease from 3,541 students that were enrolled the year before. Enrollment is currently at 3,385 middle school students.
High school enrollment peaked during the 2019-20 school year with 5,133 students enrolled, and has declined by about 100 students since then to a current enrollment of 5,004 students.
Transitional kindergarten (TK) enrollment has stayed level over the past five years, with 171 students currently enrolled. At its peak during the 2019-20 school year, TK had 184 students enrolled.
Trustee Steve Maher asked about projections for TK enrollment, and assistant superintendent of student support services Ed Diolazo said, “Usually we can get a little bit of an estimate as to who’s coming in but this year it’s really been difficult, that’s my honest answer, in terms of what the TK numbers will look like.”
“We hope and anticipate that there will be more TK and K students that come in but … it’s hard to project when the numbers were so depressed this year for TK and K because those kids are what we use to project the next year,” Diolazo said. “Our kinders and our first grade are a little bit depressed in terms of what we’re projecting because if the kids come back to what we’re used to from a couple years ago, then those numbers will increase and so forth.”
Current racial and ethnic data also shows exactly half of the district’s students are Asian, while white students make up 30% of the population, followed by Hispanic students (10%), students identifying as two or more races (6%), Filipinos (2%), and African American students (1%). Another 1% of students declined to state their racial or ethnic makeup.
Trustee Joan Laursen said the district seemed “under-enrolled in our dual immersion program, and that’s quite a change since we used to have a long, long waiting list for that program.”
“I’m wondering if this has something to do with the changing of our ethnicity,” Laursen said. “When you look back 10 years, we had a higher proportion of white students who maybe wanted to be participating in our Spanish dual immersion program versus today we have a higher percentage of Asian students who may or may not be interested in that program as much.”
Laursen also requested “some additional information about the status of our Spanish dual immersion program as we move forward, and what are the plans for that,” as well as plans for a Mandarin dual immersion program.
Trustee Kelly Mokashi noted that in the district’s choice areas for enrollment “there’s a higher percentage of students choosing Amador versus Foothill” high school. Though PUSD does not collect information about why students choose what school they attend, student board member Saachi Bhayani offered some insight.
“The Fairlands neighborhood, a lot of those kids choose to go to Foothill because they’re going to Hart, so then most of Hart goes to Foothill, so everyone they know is going to Foothill,” Bhayani said. “But a lot of people do keep the same friend groups from elementary school in the Fairlands friend group, which are all in the same choice area, so they all go to Amador because Amador is significantly closer.”
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People ultimately vote with their feet.
With never-ending student masking (but not for celebs), defund the police banter, upcoming jab mandates, and identity politics taught in many public schools…parents are taking action.
Moving to states such as Idaho/Arizona/Texas/FL/TN and home schooling. Look at net migration by state since covid and you’ll see this point is true as ever. Maybe PUSD will actually care if they see declining revenue…maybe.
PUSD better/should care about declining revenue—they just gave out big raises. The bigger point is that the board is awful and the superintendent is worse. Get a great superintendent—someone who is already a great superintendent—and new board members and people will come back—mask mandates or not.
“ and people will come back—mask mandates or not.”
With all due respect, I’ve spoken to at least 100 families about our ongoing mask mandates for students. About 95% are fed up and looking to send their children to private schools, home school, pod school or move out of this once amazing, Golden State.
This report doesn’t really shed light on why enrollment is down while housing prices continue to rise and younger families replace older homeowners. It just discusses that it’s happening. Would really be helpful to know private and home school enrollment numbers.
50% Asian? Wow, Pleasanton is becoming Fremont.
@Pleasanton Parent,
Is 50% Asian some kind of problem?
Not a problem BobB. Just unusual since the asian population is around 7% overall. Put your woke outrage away. Nothing here to be outraged about.
John, the 2020 census says Asian is about 35%. No outrage, just checking the demographics.
Overall US asian per cent is 7.2, California is 15.2
Well, Pleasanton is 35ish, which I believe is what we are talking about. Good to talk about national and California though.
John,
I missed where there was any outrage. My comment was concerning Pleasanton Parent’s observation. I have noticed many times on these forums people lamenting that “Pleasanton was becoming like Fremont” and using that phrase pejoratively. Pleasanton parent was using the same phrase. My question was, is that some kind of a problem? Not outrage, just a question.
India is in both the northern and eastern hemisphere. India is bordered on the northwest with Afghanistan and Pakistan. India is bordered on the north with China and Bhutan. India is bordered on the east with Bangladesh and Burma.
I remember when people from India were referred to as “East Indian”. Today people from India are referred to as “Asian”.
Would a person with heritage from India weigh in here, state what you prefer your preference is?
Sorry to burst your sjw war call, stating Pleasanton is following a similar pattern to Fremont isn’t some decoder ring call for wokeness police.
Personally I think Fremont is too segmented and big, lacks a sense of community, but there are some smaller pockets that I’d consider living in.
The teachers, kids, parents, and community want district leadership and a board that leads confidently and puts our students first. Issues like returning to the classrooms, mask choice, learning loss, and mental health should be #1 priorities. We spend too much time on things like districting. I am blown away that there is not even an agenda item for tonight’s meeting about how the district will approach the pending removal of the school mask mandate on 2/28. Many of us are tired of the lack of communication and messages of fear that come from the district level. It’s time to move forward and we need our leaders to aggressively take that step for our kids. If not, more and more will leave our district.
“Sorry to burst your sjw war call”
What are you talking about “sjw”? What?
Again, are you saying 50% Asian is a problem, and how does that relate to “becoming like Fremont”, and how is that a problem?
Has anybody taken into account there might be fewer people in Pleasanton with school-age children? Or at least fewer in each family. Child-rearing is costly. For some it has become untenable, so they’ve opted out of having children. People who move here don’t always have lots of children, so school enrollment numbers naturally drop. I recently heard a school superintendent talk about unhappy parents pulling their children out of the public system. He cited a 76% rate of satisfied parents and maybe 10% of dissatisfied ones. He further remarked that the dissatisfied ones are the most vocal. You know, the old “squeaky wheel syndrome”.
People moving here still cite superior schools as a reason for choosing Pleasanton. I’ve watched my own neighborhood cycle. When it was new, there were very young children. They cycled through elementary school, on into middle and high schools, then went away to college. For a time there were almost alarmingly few school-age neighbors. The empty-nesters and old folks began selling, moving to retirement communities or other places with fewer taxes and less traffic. With a new group of parents, the kid population burgeoned again. Now the littles are on their move toward middle and high school and on their way out again. So maybe the downturn in school numbers is partly the result of the natural ebb and flow of a community. Perhaps this is much ado about nothing and with time it will auto-correct.
The point is that we don’t know the whys, but the district does and should say so.
BobB – I’ll let you google Sjw and it will answer your second and third questions
Keeknlinda- I can’t speak for all households, but 70% of the houses on my street have sold since I’ve been here, and each time an older family (kids gone) has been replaced with school aged children. I’d imagine that’s not unique to my street give. Prop 13 and our housing prices.
Kathleen- you’re dead on right. We deserve transparency
@Pleasanton Parent,
How does “sjw” explain my question on your 50% Asian observation? I’ll use the R word here. What is the relevance of Asian families like mine being 50% of enrollment? How is that relevant to anything? Why bring it up? Why draw attention to the fact that lots of families like mine have moved to Pleasanton? How is it relevant to this discussion?
Here comes BobB, the woke outraged sjw on some perceived slight.
@John,
I’ll leave the social justice stuff to you since you you know more about it, and let Pleasanton Parent answer my questions.
What is the relevance of Asian families like mine being 50% of enrollment? How is that relevant to anything? Why bring it up? Why draw attention to the fact that lots of families like mine have moved to Pleasanton? How is it relevant to this discussion?
The student body at the schools served by Pleasanton Unified School District is 35.3% White, 1.4% Black, 47.4% Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander, 9.9% Hispanic/Latino, 0.1% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.2% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
I’ll let Pleasanton Parent weigh in on:
What is the relevance of Asian families like mine being 50% of enrollment? How is that relevant to anything? Why bring it up? Why draw attention to the fact that lots of families like mine have moved to Pleasanton? How is it relevant to this discussion?
Did you even read the article BonB?
@Pleasanton Parent,
Yes, I read the article.
What is the relevance of Asian families like mine being 50% of enrollment? How is that relevant to anything? Why bring it up? Why draw attention to the fact that lots of families like mine have moved to Pleasanton? How is it relevant to this discussion?
BobB
If you read the article youd have seen the relationship between the increase in the Asian demographic and the decline in the dual immersion program. That’s the relationship.
And as the demographics change at the rate they are, people can’t assimilate into the Pleasanton culture so they find like individuals and create segregated communities- ie my Fremont reference. And you start to loose the connected community feel.
I agree with keeklinda’s rationale. Our kids went through PUSD, finished college and now are working in tech industry in the Bay Area. We are still here and don’t plan on having anymore kids 🙂
BobB, I totally agree – what is the relevance of 50% of students being Asian? Here is my response:
There is a cross section of Americans that is not comfortable with increase of Asian Americans especially brown skin Indians in our country, states and cities. These Americans tend to be above a certain age and of certain race mainly from Europe. They are very uncomfortable with and scared of what is happening to their beautiful white America.
That is how they see Fremont with a lot of Asians thus the comment above.
We are blessed as Americans to welcome people of all color and religion to our country as long as they come here legally. It is what makes us a great country.
RobertD,
Please feel free to comment on your own experience with the Asian/Indian population, but it’s very irresponsible and wrong of you to proliferate a projection of what you think other peoples experience or assertions are.
Please be more responsible with your words, in todays era of social media, the spread of misinformation is very fast and uncontrolled.
Be better, I’m sorry you feel that way about others in your community. Maybe you should take time to speak to them about their concerns instead of projecting your assumptions of them.
RobertD,
That’s been my experience too. When I see comments like “… people can’t assimilate into the Pleasanton culture …”, I can see that it has very little to do with funding for enrollment in dual immersion programs, and much more to do with keeping out people with certain “cultures”.
I’ve been here for a while and seen plenty. Pleasanton Weekly has already banned some outright racists who supplemented their comments about “assimilation” with blatant racism, so you can be sure that has gone out of our community either.
There was nothing “irresponsible” or “wrong” with what you wrote.