California High School Enrollment Trends

📊 The state of California enrollment

California's two-track story — private growing, public shrinking, but the sorting story matters more

Between 2020 and 2025, California's K-12 enrollment split into two trajectories:

But the bigger story is inside each sector. California families are sorting between schools more than they used to — which means some high schools are growing even as the average shrinks, and some are shrinking inside a sector that's growing on average:

The implication for school leaders: the squeeze is not uniform. Even in a sector that's shrinking on average, hundreds of California high schools are gaining students — through reputation, programs, location, or what they're known for. The schools that families actively choose are growing; schools that families default to are most exposed. This is the dynamic an Enrollment Trend Audit measures →

Method: Total enrollment by school, comparing 2020 (CDE's first year of broad private-school coverage) to 2025. Growing/shrinking = ±2% change in total enrollment. Schools missing either endpoint are excluded from the per-school breakdown. Virtual / nonclassroom-based charter schools excluded throughout. Source: CDE Census Day Enrollment + Private School Affidavit.

Look up a school's enrollment trend

Start typing a school name, city, or district to see grade 12 and total enrollment over all available years.

Grade-12 enrollment by school type

Statewide totals — sum of grade-12 enrollment across all schools with data for each year. Charter schools are grouped with public because charter enrollment data in the CDE feed maps to one row in this database.