Salt Lake City schools once again saw a drop in student enrollment this fall for the 2023-2024 school year — a trend that has continued to ail the school district over the last decade.
This year specifically, almost 500 fewer students enrolled compared to last year, marking a 2.5% decrease, Chief Information Officer Sam Quantz told board members Tuesday night.
Four elementary schools noted in the district’s presentation are currently being studied for potential closure: Hawthorne Elementary was down 12.4%; Mary W. Jackson was down 10.6%; Newman was down 10.7%; and Riley was down 9% from last year.
The other three elementary schools slated for potential closure, Bennion, Wasatch and Emerson, saw 0.6%, 1.5% and 1.3% decreases, respectively, according to the full report, which The Salt Lake Tribune obtained Wednesday through an open records request.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dr. Elizabeth Grant, superintendent of Salt Lake City School District, right, and 6th grade dual language immersion teacher Amaia Lema, welcome the year's new students on the first day of school at Mary W. Jackson Elementary, August 22, 2023.
Other changes reflected in the data included kindergarten enrollment dropping 5.8% overall, though it is “not uncommon” for those numbers to fluctuate, Quantz said.
Sixth and eighth grade enrollment also declined — by about 6% and 9%, respectively — figures that the district will need to pay particular attention to, Quantz noted, because they mark “transition years” for middle and high school.
“Seeing those two declines in sixth grade and eighth grade are possible indicators that we’re going to see some of that next year in the ninth and seventh grade,” he said.
Two district-sponsored charter schools — Open Classroom and Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts (SPA) — also saw a loss of students. Open Classroom lost 21 students while SPA lost 37.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Where did enrollment increase?
Meadowlark, Parkview and Washington Elementary all saw significant increases in enrollment — 10.6%, 13.9% and 30.23%, respectively. Other schools not highlighted in Quantz’s presentation saw around a 1-2% positive or negative change in students, he noted.
While there were declines in some grades, the district’s second, fifth, 10th and 12th grades saw overall growth, ranging from a little under 7% to almost 10%.
Demographically, the district saw increases in student groups such as its Multi Language Learners and English Language Learners — students who speak a primary language other than English — as well as in economically disadvantaged, low-income and homeless students.
As for charters, Salt Lake Center for Science Education saw a 5.6% increase, or about 20 more students.
Why is enrollment declining?
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Parents and students walk to class on the first day of school at Mary W. Jackson Elementary, August 22, 2023.
Since the 2013-2014 school year, the district has gone from almost 24,000 students to now 18,966 students.
The district has specifically lost almost 4,000 K-6 students since 2014, officials have noted at board meetings and public information sessions regarding potential elementary school closures.
Reports from demographers the district has hired to study its population have attributed the decline in students to Salt Lake City’s aging population, despite the city’s growth.
“It’s a prosperous area,” demographer Rick Brammer told school board members in January 2022. “The nature of that growth is just shifting away from the school-age population. It’s obviously gentrifying.”
Families living in areas west of Interstate 15 are aging in place or leaving for other areas, Brammer’s report, from Applied Economics, also showed.
This is in addition to the fact that Utahns are having fewer children, due to factors such as cultural shifts and economic concerns, like the lack of affordable housing in the city.
Real estate agents have also seen fewer families with kids, or couples who plan to have kids, try and move into the city.
“I think that demographically, there are not many places to go anymore that families can afford in Salt Lake City boundaries,” realtor Luann Lakis told The Tribune in the summer. “I just haven’t had any people with kids really call me and say, ‘Hey, we need to find a house in the city.’”
Correction • Oct. 24, 2:30 p.m.: This story has been updated to correct enrollment increase and decrease percentages among district schools, after a district official presented inaccurate numbers to Salt Lake City school board members at the Oct. 17 board meeting. The district attributed the error to pre-K enrollment numbers being included in some of its enrollment calculations, which have since been corrected.
