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Philadelphia’s school district enrollment has dropped by nearly 2,500 students from last school year — the largest year-over-year enrollment decline in five years.
But it’s unclear which schools or demographic factors are driving that slump the most.
The decline, which Chalkbeat analyzed from the district’s daily enrollment snapshot for Oct. 13, represents a drop of more than 2% from last year. That’s raising concerns the district is losing out in an education environment where district, brick-and-mortar and cyber charters, and private schools all compete for the same kids.
“There’s changes happening in consumer behavior,” said Stacy Holland, executive director of the education nonprofit Elevate 215. The enrollment drop, she said, indicates schools are not responding “rapidly enough to actually meet the quality needs that parents are looking for.”
This school year as of Oct. 13, about 114,420 students are enrolled in district and district-run alternative schools, the preliminary data shows. Last year, the district’s Oct. 1 enrollment was roughly 116,900, according to district data. That decline is much greater than what the state projected last year.
Roughly six years ago, the district’s enrollment topped 122,400.
The factors driving the particularly sharp decline this year remain unclear. The city’s birth rate has long been declining, and the number of kids has dropped. That creates more competition between schools to enroll kids, Holland said, and makes it unavoidable for enrollment somewhere to drop.
Over the past five years, enrollment in Philadelphia’s brick-and-mortar charter schools has grown slightly, but cyber charter enrollment has skyrocketed.
This year’s district enrollment decline follows the district’s decision to close 17 schools beginning next year. The Yass Prize, an organization funded by Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass, offered scholarships to 500 students attending closing schools to enroll in private schools starting this school year instead. The group did not respond to requests for how many students have taken it up on the offer.
Some educators and advocates worry increased immigration enforcement could be driving families out of the city or towards online options, as recent research into other districts’ enrollment has found.
But whatever the reasons, “State officials that don’t want to fund schools will say, ‘Well, they’re shrinking. We don’t need to fund them,’” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center.
It’s also possible that this year isn’t a particularly dire warning sign: Two years ago, district enrollment grew by 1,800 students.
A one-year drop has little impact on district funding due to how the state formula works, Urevick-Ackelsberg said. But if more district kids enroll in brick-and-mortar and cyber charters, he added, the district will have to make larger payments to those schools, which will squeeze its finances.
All Pennsylvania schools, including private and charter schools, are required to report enrollment counts to the state as of Oct. 1. But the Pennsylvania Department of Education said it does not plan to publish the data until the spring.
District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement that staff are “aggressively canvassing neighborhoods to locate children who are not attending school.” That includes partnering with faith leaders, block captains, elected officials, ward leaders, and community organizations to try to connect with families, she said.
“We want to bring enrollment in District-operated schools as close as possible to last year’s … and then build from there,” Braxton said.
The district also reviewed enrollment rolls in September, ultimately adding back 720 students before the Oct. 1 count, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The district said those students were “improperly dropped” from the rolls.
Cyber charter enrollment from Philly has grown rapidly
So where are Philly’s students going, if not to the district’s schools?
Tracking kids after they leave public schools is notoriously difficult, as states track students differently and require different reporting from public and private schools.
But to get a sense of where enrollment has increased, Chalkbeat examined historical citywide enrollment data, and analyzed the current year’s enrollment counts from a few nondistrict schools that provided it.
Brick-and-mortar charters are one decent candidate. Between school year 2021-22 and school year 2025-26, the most recent year available, enrollment in Philadelphia brick-and-mortar charter schools increased nearly every year, with the sector logging enrollment growth of more than 2% over the five-year period.
Early College Charter School, the first new charter in the city in nearly a decade, also opened this school year, enrolling 225 students, according to a school spokesperson. But it’s not clear how many of those students relocated from district schools.
Philly students’ enrollment in cyber charter has skyrocketed, increasing by 20% over the past five years despite their generally low academic performance.
At the same time, data from the state’s largest cyber charter schools is a mixed bag. Enrollment from Philly at the Commonwealth Charter Academy, the state’s largest cyber charter, increased by around 85 students this school year, with more than 5,100 enrolled. But at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, the second-largest, enrollment from Philly this year declined more than 100 students, data from the school shows.
Preliminary enrollment data from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which operates several parochial schools, shows 450 fewer students enrolled in its Philly schools this year. A spokesperson said that count is still being confirmed and will likely grow slightly.
That leaves factors like the declining birth rate in the area and students moving out of the city to other districts. But isolating their precise impact on district schools is difficult.
“People like to say … families are voting with their feet,” said Priyanka Reyes-Kaura, K-12 education policy director at the Pennsylvania-based advocacy group Children First. “But we actually don’t know yet where the students went.”
Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.