Va. School Enrollment Growth 'Uneven' as Northern Virginia Sees Surge

By Thompson Wall

Image: Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s Demographics Research Group.

A new Census Brief from the University of Virginia says Northern Virginia’s public school enrollment is surging as student populations in the majority of the state’s school systems continue to shrink.

The report, released last week by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, revealed student enrollment in Virginia public schools has grown steadily, albeit unevenly, across the state over the past 20 years.

“Annual births in Northern Virginia have increased substantially since the 1900s,” said the brief’s author Hamilton Lombard in a news release. “In the rest of Virginia, on the other hand, most places experienced a slight decline during that same time period.”

Between 2008 and 2013, only 31 percent of school divisions saw enrollment increases partly due to lower family migration rates since the 2008 recession, according to the brief.

The report attributes the NoVa area’s enrollment growth to a substantial increase in annual births, which declined in most other localities during the five-year period. The area also saw a high concentration of “in-migration” of families with school-age children.

The study also prepared projections for school enrollment over the next five years, noting a steady overall increase in school enrollment for Northern Virginia and a continued decline in a majority of localities elsewhere.

“Fast growth in some areas and continuing decline in others present challenges to local school boards and public school leaders,” said Qian Cai, director of the Demographics Workforce Group. “Declining-enrollment divisions face closing or consolidating schools, while those with increasing enrollment must generate the resources to build new facilities and hire personnel to provide public education to the children of the community. Keeping an eye on these trends is essential to effective planning.”