![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_2158.jpg\")
Edith B. Storey Elementary School, located south of Highway 180, has lost more students in the last decade than any other Fresno Unified school. Today, it has just over half the students it did back in 2016. Fresnoland | Diego Vargas<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake:<\/p>\n
Mirroring statewide trends of declining enrollment, Fresno Unified’s loss of nearly 4,000 students in the past decade and a continued forecast of decline could mean school closures or consolidations for the third largest school district in California.<\/p>\n
Before they left for Mexico, they told Principal Faviola Perez their kids wouldn\u2019t be at school anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At least 10 families of students at Mayfair Elementary School have approached Perez over the last year to tell her that the federal government\u2019s immigration policies have left them with no choice but to uproot their lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so devastated that I\u2019m losing families,\u201d Perez told Fresnoland. \u201cBut I do understand the fear because when I was in fifth grade, I watched my mom get deported. When I was a sophomore at Roosevelt High School, my brother got deported from Roosevelt High School.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perez said the effects of national policy trickle down to the local level, and it\u2019s changing local schools. She described enrollment declines due to immigration concerns at Mayfair Elementary\u00a0 as \u201canother COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n
But immigration raids are just the latest challenge \u2014 and not the main culprit \u2014 to keeping students in Fresno Unified schools.<\/p>\n
Well before a shift in immigration policy and enforcement tactics last year, student enrollment at Mayfair Elementary plummeted during the pandemic and never recovered. Over the last decade, Mayfair Elementary went from 736 students in 2016 to just 547 enrolled this school year.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a 25% decline, and it\u2019s not even the biggest enrollment drop across California\u2019s third largest K-12 school district.<\/p>\n
More than a dozen of Fresno Unified\u2019s schools have lost over 20% of their students over the last decade, and most of the district\u2019s elected trustees have remained silent on the looming school closure debate.<\/p>\n
Today, Fresno Unified has 3,901 fewer students than it did a decade ago, according to a Fresnoland analysis of the district\u2019s student enrollment over the last decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those enrollment declines are concentrated at Fresno Unified\u2019s elementary schools and in south Fresno, Fresnoland found.<\/p>\n
Olmos Elementary in southeast Fresno has grappled with the second-highest loss in the last decade \u2014 nearly 34% of all students. But no school has been more devastated by enrollment declines than Storey Elementary, which has lost almost half its student population in the last decade.<\/p>\n
Edith B. Storey Elementary School, located south of Highway 180, has lost more students in the last decade than any other Fresno Unified school. Today, it has just over half the students it did back in 2016. Fresnoland | Diego Vargas<\/p>\n
Not all school districts are losing kids<\/p>\n
While district leaders acknowledge the simmering school closure debate, they have no appetite to discuss it \u2014 and experts suggest there\u2019s even less that the district can do to dig itself out of this growing hole.<\/p>\n
Fresno Unified \u2014 far from the only California district confronting enrollment declines \u2014 currently has no process for identifying which schools may close in the coming years, with internal estimates ranging from three to as many as 11 schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs other districts statewide who have consolidated or closed school sites,\u201d said Fresno Unified spokesperson Adela Duncan, \u201chere at FUSD three to five school sites may be considered, but there isn\u2019t any current projected timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Patrick Jensen, Fresno Unified\u2019s chief financial officer, several factors would need to be considered before closing a school. That includes the age and condition of school sites, the capacity of nearby schools and whether neighboring schools could accommodate incoming students.<\/p>\n On top of that, Jensen said the district would also examine how far schools are from their students, whether a school serves a historically underserved community, traffic patterns and whether students would need to cross busy intersections to go to school.<\/p>\n Fresno Unified\u2019s challenges aren\u2019t unique.\u00a0<\/p>\n Close to three quarters of all K-12 public school districts in California are grappling with enrollment declines, according to a 2025 analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n That analysis also found that enrollment declines are steeper at larger, urban school districts that have more low-income students and a higher share of Latino students.<\/p>\n All of those attributes match up with Fresno Unified: An urban school district \u2014 California\u2019s third largest \u2014 where 84.16% of students are identified as low-income<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs far as clawing their way out of declining enrollment, I think a lot of the factors that are driving this declining enrollment overall are quite outside of the school\u2019s control,\u201d said Brett Guinan, a research associate at PPIC.<\/p>\n Declining enrollment isn\u2019t a reality for all school districts, especially those in rural and suburban areas. Additionally, districts with higher shares of Asian and white students \u2014 and fewer low income students \u2014 are growing, according to the PPIC analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n That appears to explain what\u2019s going on at neighboring Clovis Unified.\u00a0<\/p>\n Student enrollment has been climbing at Clovis Unified since the second year of the pandemic, and the district enrolled a record-high number of students<\/a> this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n A Fresnoland review of the Clovis Unified School District confirmed that half of its schools are located within Fresno city limits, but only the northernmost neighborhoods where some of the most affluent communities in Fresno reside and property values are highest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u200b\u200bGuinan confirmed that Clovis Unified\u2019s steady enrollment in the last decade matches similar trends in the state, where districts serving higher concentrations of Asian and white students aren\u2019t facing the same reality as poor urban districts like Fresno Unified.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYes, we do see districts with fewer low income students tend to be those that are growing than those that have more low-income students,\u201d Guinan said.<\/p>\n Disparities at elementary schools and in south Fresno<\/p>\n Fresnoland used state data to examine Fresno Unified\u2019s enrollment woes school by school and found that more than 65% of all Fresno Unified schools have fewer students today than they did a decade ago.<\/p>\n Those declines are disparately concentrated at Fresno Unified elementary schools and in south Fresno, according to Fresnoland\u2019s analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n The following five Fresno Unified schools had the largest percentage drop in student enrollment over the last decade:<\/p>\n Storey Elementary<\/p>\n Olmos Elementary\u00a0<\/p>\n Gibson Elementary<\/p>\n Holland Elementary<\/p>\n Jefferson Elementary<\/p>\n All five are elementary schools, and three are located south of the 180 freeway.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the last decade, the median Fresno Unified school lost 57 students.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet, the median elementary school in the district lost 74 students over the same time period.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, the median Fresno Unified school located south of the 180 freeway has 79 fewer students today than they did a decade ago.<\/p>\n Fresno Unified\u2019s trustees haven\u2019t had a single public conversation at school board meetings about the subject of school closures. Additionally, only one of its seven members spoke to Fresnoland about the likelihood of school closures.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trustee Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas said she expects school closures to take place at Fresno Unified in the next couple years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ability to have our resources focused in a school that is at capacity or a little below, versus two schools that are half full, is better for our students because we\u2019re not having to maintain two facilities,\u201d Jonasson Rosas told Fresnoland.<\/p>\n She added that closing school has an emotional impact on the communities they serve.<\/p>\n Public school districts get state funding based on the Local Control Funding Formula, which is based on enrollment and how often students show up to school. The decline in enrollment at individual Fresno Unified schools add up, especially for a district with more than 100 schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jensen said those enrollment declines are largely responsible for Fresno Unified\u2019s ongoing budget deficit, which is currently $88 million. District officials project a $55 million deficit for the 2026-27 school year even after approving cuts for 466<\/a> employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the last decade, the district\u2019s largest annual decline in students happened the first year of the pandemic \u2014 enrolling 1,151 fewer students in the 2020-21 school year than the prior year.<\/p>\n The second largest annual decline was this year \u2014 with Fresno Unified enrolling 995 fewer students in the 2025-26 school year than the year prior.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s basically what we\u2019re struggling with,\u201d Jensen told Fresnoland. \u201cBecause if we had stayed flat from where we were at pre-COVID and had the same attendance and same enrollment, we wouldn\u2019t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n Enrollment declines with statewide implications<\/p>\n Across California, K-12 schools have lost around 75,000 students in the past year, with an EdSource<\/a> analysis showing a drop of nearly 10% in enrollment since the 2017-18 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Guinan, of PPIC, told Fresnoland that those enrollment declines are unlikely to end anytime soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere are definitely trends of declining enrollment statewide that are projected to continue for at least the next five, likely 10 years,\u201d Guinan said, \u201cdriven primarily by declining birth rates and by higher migration out of the state than in prior years, especially during the pandemic years, and a slowing of international migration into the state.\u201d<\/p>\n Each of California\u2019s five biggest school districts have issued layoffs notices this year, including Fresno Unified. All but one have been grappling with shrinking student enrollment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Los Angeles Unified, California\u2019s largest K-12 school district, has already announced plans to close schools. So have a number of other districts, including San Jose Unified<\/a> and Vallejo City Unified<\/a>. At Oakland Unified<\/a>, over 60 principals have called for the district board to close schools to balance a $100 million current deficit.<\/p>\n Additionally, the adoption of transitional kindergarten, or TK for short, did not have the enrollment impacts educators and leaders across the state were hoping for. It also hasn\u2019t really changed enrollment figures for school districts across the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith the expansion of transitional kindergarten statewide, that\u2019s offset some of the declining enrollment, because it\u2019s essentially added a new grade in for even younger students,\u201d Guinan said. \u201cBut take up for TK hasn\u2019t been quite as high as the program has expanded, not everyone who is eligible uses it.\u201d<\/p>\n Historically, Guinan says that enrollment declines are larger in high school years than earlier grades. However, she confirmed that recent data trends are showing larger drops in enrollment in early grades, a trend that appears to be taking place at Fresno Unified.<\/p>\n \u201cRecently, we are seeing bigger drops in enrollment among those earlier grades, and again, that\u2019s likely due to this kind of lower birth rate,\u201d Guinan said. \u201cThere just are fewer kids that can be entering the system.\u201d<\/p>\n The very real impact of shrinking enrollment<\/p>\n Over at Mayfair Elementary, losing a quarter of its students in the last decade has had a marked impact on the school.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lyle Patty, who has been teaching at Mayfair since 2014, recalled each grade level having at least five classes of students at the K-6 school. After steep declines during the pandemic, most grade levels at Mayfair now only have enough students for up to three classes.<\/p>\n \u201cI find that the attendance decreases, but the responsibilities still stay the same,\u201d Patty said. \u201cWhether I have more resources or not, I still have the same expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n Perez, Mayfair\u2019s principal, said the school will be losing a third grade teacher along with a social worker and a restorative practice counselor, all part of the district\u2019s cuts. She said she expects to truly feel the impacts of declining enrollment and average daily attendance (ADA) next year \u2014 which both directly impact state funding levels for Fresno Unified.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important resource, most important capital that you have on your campus, is your adults,\u201d Perez said, \u201cand if we can\u2019t pay the adults because we don\u2019t have the ADA coming, then we\u2019re losing the resources that are going to be able to help the students of Fresno Unified.\u201d<\/p>\n Perez, who was born in Culiac\u00e1n, Mexico, was able to pursue a higher education after AB 540 passed in 2001, allowing her to be eligible to pay in-state tuition at Fresno State. Just last year, she earned her doctoral degree in educational leadership as a Bulldog.<\/p>\n For Perez, who was undocumented up until she was 21 years old, she sees herself in the children and families who are choosing to move away amid heightened immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s at stake: Mirroring statewide trends of declining enrollment, Fresno Unified’s loss of nearly 4,000 students in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[52815,112,114,113,14569],"class_list":["post-299177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-enrollment-decline","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-unified"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299177","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=299177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_1831.jpg\")
Enrollment declines at Fresno Unified are concentrated most at schools located south of Highway 180. While the median Fresno Unified school lost 57 students over the last decade, the median school south of the 180 freeway lost 79 students in that same time period. Diego Vargas | Fresnoland<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_1972.jpg\")
Fresno High School had the largest enrollment decline over the last decade out of all Fresno Unified high schools. Today, the high school enrolls about 20% less students than in 2016. Diego Vargas | Fresnoland<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_2110.jpg\")
Faviola Perez, Mayfair Elementary\u2019s principal, graduated from Roosevelt High School and previously served at Bullard High School as vice principal and once taught at both Edison High and McLane high schools. Once an undocumented immigrant herself, she has been profoundly impacted by students and families who have chosen to move back to Mexico amid heightened immigration enforcement. Diego Vargas | Fresnoland<\/p>\n