Planning Consultants Forecast Declines in Enrollment for Eight Pasadena Unified Schools

Pasadena Unified School District building (Photo – Staff)

The school district’s consultants, the DLR Group, will present their forecasts for changes in enrollment for each district school over the next 5 years.

By Rena Kurlander

Included in their forecasts are many surprisingly large decreases for several popular schools.

• Willard Elementary, with a history of higher achievement for such a diverse population and an International Baccalaureate (IB) Curriculum, is forecasted to lose 204 students by 2028, or 43% of its current enrollment of 475 students.
• Field Elementary, popular for its Mandarin Dual Language Immersion Program, is forecasted to lose 164 students during the same period, or 42% of its current enrollment of 395 students.
• Eliot Arts Magnet, a middle school that just collaborated with Altadena Arts to put on an amazing production of Peter Pan is forecasted to lose 169 students, or 35% of its current enrollment of 477 students.
• Octavia Butler Magnet, a middle school, is forecasted to lose 176 students, or 34% of its current enrollment of 519 students.
• Sierra Madre Middle School is forecasted to lose 192 students, or 33% of its current enrollment of 579 students.
• Sierra Madre Elementary, which was honored as a California Distinguished School this year, is forecasted to lose 161 students, or 28% of its current enrollment of 585 students.
• Jackson STEM Dual Language (Spanish) Magnet, currently very full with 608 students enrolled, is forecasted to lose 166 of those students, or 27%.
• San Rafael Elementary, also home to a popular Spanish Dual Language Immersion Program, is forecasted to lose 94 students, or 24% of its current enrollment of 386 students.

These percentages assume average annual enrollment declines of 6.6% to 8.6% per year for the next 5 years for these schools, which are over twice as high as the average enrollment decline in the district from 2017 to 2021, which was about 3.2%.

The presentation does not explain in detail how the consultants arrived at these projections.  It does refer to the well-known phenomena of declining birth rates and number of students living in the schools’ attendance areas.

Rena Kurlander is a resident in the San Gabriel Valley.