Plano ISD’s enrollment is projected to dip below 40,000 students by the 2029-30 school year, according to a recent demographer report.
The overview
The district’s enrollment was down by 2,712 students in 2025-26 from the previous school year, outpacing the projected enrollment decline by more than 1,300.
PISD’s demography consultant Rocky Gardner of Zonda Demographics told the district’s board of trustees on Jan. 20 that he expects the enrollment to continue declining but “not at the same pace” as this year’s decline.
“We did see a little bit of double whammy in Plano this past year,” Gardner said. “We had about 500 less newcomers, and we had about 150 more leavers.”
He added that the district lost about 1,000 students to attrition, with a larger 12th grade class leaving than the class entering the district.
According to the report, the district is expected to lose 1,652 students next school year. Enrollment is projected to dip below 40,000 in 2029-30 and continue decreasing through 2035-36, although at a lesser rate.
Zooming in
Some of the district’s enrollment decline can be attributed to the city’s housing stock, according to the presentation.
For single-family homes, both the number of new constructions and closed sales in Plano have decreased over the last seven years. From 2018 to 2024, new construction starts and closed sales dropped by 291 and 416, respectively.
Additionally, the report states that 13,364 PISD students live in apartments, and the yield for PISD is 0.206 students per multifamily unit in the city.
“They’re building more one-bedroom than two-bedroom [units], so we’re not going to see as many students,” Gardner said.
He added that the number of students from apartments could increase as the complexes get older and rents decrease.
Another thing
Birth rates in the district have also decreased. In 2020, which represents the 2025-26 incoming kindergarten class, 3,521 babies were born within the district’s boundaries, down from 3,720 in 2019, according to the presentation.
This year’s kindergarten class is 2,683 students, 76.2% of the birthrate. That’s the district’s lowest percentage of births to enrollments, or “capture rate,” the district has seen since at least 2018-19, the earliest earliest data in the demographer report.
Gardner forecasts the capture rate to level out around 76% going forward, while birthrates from 2021-24 are up from 2020.
Before you go
Gardner said that there are “a lot of unknowns” in future enrollment projections due to several factors.
That includes Senate Bill 2, which passed last May and will introduce a $1 billion education savings account families can use to pay for private school—otherwise referred to as private school vouchers launching in the 2026-27 school year.