{"id":271765,"date":"2026-04-17T01:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/271765\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T01:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:25:11","slug":"fresno-unified-enrollment-drops-by-nearly-1000-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/271765\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno Unified enrollment drops by nearly 1,000 students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresno Unified \u2014 the state\u2019s third-largest school district \u2014 saw a drop in student enrollment of nearly 1,000 ahead of the 2025-26 school year, according to data released from the California Department of Education on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s annual enrollment report totaled 70,163 students for the current school year. That compares to 71,151 last year, or a decline of 988 students.<\/p>\n

Annual CDE data going back to 2014 shows declines for all but three years. The largest drop previously was 962 students from 2019-20 to 2020-21, a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. This was followed by another significant drop of 898 students from 2022-23 to 2023-24.<\/p>\n

\"Fresno<\/p>\n

Funding for California school districts is largely determined by average daily attendance, and Bellwether<\/a> \u2014 a nonprofit focused on education policy \u2014 says funding is directly impacted by enrollment changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften, declining enrollment prompts budget realignments to ensure the number of staff, schools, and programs are aligned with enrollment,\u201d the nonprofit says.<\/p>\n

In February, trustees approved plans to send layoff notices<\/a> to 274 employees, though the decision won\u2019t be finalized until next year\u2019s budget is approved in June.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Fenley<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

Nick Fenley is a reporter covering education, lawsuits, breaking news and more for The Fresno Bee. He\u2019s originally from the Imperial Valley and has been with The Bee since 2025.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno Unified \u2014 the state\u2019s third-largest school district \u2014 saw a drop in student enrollment of nearly 1,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-271765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}