San Diego School enrollment down

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

An interesting tidbit from the Union-Tribune:

For the fifth year in a row, enrollment in the San Diego Unified School District has slipped, costing the state’s second-largest public school system millions of dollars in revenue.

According to data released this week, district schools are down about 2,200 students to 117,764 in kindergarten through 12th grade.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20061006-9999-1m6enroll.html

SD Unified school enrollment off by another ~2% this year. With a 5-year trend in place either we have an aging local demographic, a significant net outflow of families with school-aged children or (my opinion) both.

[Anonymous]

Makes sense, FSD, correlating with what we saw in the ’05 Census report.

I’m not a very perceptive guy, but it sure seems to me that traffic on I-5 was lighter this summer and now. I commute from La Jolla to San Clemente for work, and traffic really appears to be improving.

Anybody else see any changes in traffic?

[Daniel]

Enrollment in charter schools is up by about 1,000 though, so the overall decrease is only about half the 2,200 noted. And they say nothing about private schools.

I’m not surprised (I don’t think anyone is) by a decrease this year. But I would be quite surprised if it turned out that we had an overall decrease for 5 years in a row. After all, in 2001-2003, the city was still adding population pretty fast. I think the explanation is that public schools lost “market share” during this time to other types of schools.

[VCJIM]

Perhaps if people are no longer “rich” from the homes, they will no longer be able to afford private schools, and it will return to a net increase in enrollment for public schools. Fascinating how this all works out.

[Carlsbadliving]

Remember also that the SD school district is primarily in all of the older built-out portions of the city. So with very little room for actual population growth, the changing demographics has a lot to do with it.

[Peace]

My children attend a charter school and I’m pretty sure that that enrollment is counted in the total enrollment – charter schools are just public schools, part of a district.

[powayseller]

My son’s Poway elementary school has had declining enrollment for several years in a row. This year we reduced our kindergarten classes by one, from 4 to 3. Our parents are really old, and it’s rare to see a parent under the age of 35.

[rankandfile]

Those statistics are revealing, but not terribly surprising. Do we honestly think that San Diego is a haven for working, middle-class families? As was previously posted, the majority of San Diego homeowners are likely older and past the point of child rearing. The child rearing demographic is either in college, living with the parents, packing a bowl on their way out to Pacific Beach, and/or living with 2 or more roommates and struggling just to earn a living. Many married couples have to have 2 incomes just to afford to live here.

As I have said numerous times on this forum, many young, educated middle class people and couples that I know have left San Diego or California altogether. They saw the writing on the wall and came to the realization that the Sunshine Tax, Traffic Congestion Tax, Illegal Immigrant Tax, and Housing Bubble Tax were just too big a price to pay.

Believe me, there are many things that I love about California. However, you have to look at it like any other product or service out there. In my opinion it is less and less desirable for middle class families to live and prosper here. SoCal has much more competition today than it did 30 or 40 years ago when it was THE place to be in the US. I think if home prices come down 50%, good paying jobs become more plentiful, traffic congestion is reduced, and state government adopts more tax and business-friendly policies, you’ll start to see more opportunities for middle class couples to raise a family here.

[FormerOwner]

Temecula and Murrieta have been opening new schools like mad for the last few years. People “drove to qualify” for new McMansions in the exurbs I guess. Also, the schools are pretty good up here so I think some people see a tradeoff between living in, say, Vista or Oceanside and sending their kids to private schools, or living in Temecula and sending their kids to the public school but having one parent suffer the commute.

I’ve read that San Francisco has seen declining public school enrollments for a number of years. SF public schools aren’t that great so people tend to move out to the burbs once they have kids.

[Anonymous]

R&F, I agree with you.

My company closed down in the summer of '03.  I was not pleased with San Diego due to the reasons that you laid out, and cast my net for my next job wide.  I found a job in St. Louis.  It was a big relief to be leaving crowded, expensive San Diego.  Within weeks, though, I determined that the boss and I just couldn't see eye to eye, and I returned to San Diego, where my wife and kids were, finishing up the school year.  8 long months later, I found another job, and here we are.

St. Louis was great: green, best neighborhoods were affordable, great roads, fine university town (Wash. U.), and it had a big, beautiful cathedral.  There's a section of the city, close to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, that is unbelievable:  six blocks square or so, gated off, of mansions from the turn of the century:

https://www.centralwestend.org/hortenseplace.asp 

Most are restored; only some have been torn down and replaced with McMansions.  Absolutely stunning, and you could buy one for under $1MM.  Truly, there are other great places to live.  We're here only to be near my wife's parents, who are great grandparents.

[Author]

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