|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Despite incremental increases in enrollment over the last couple of years, the Mountain View Whisman School District is preparing for its student body to shrink.
The school board reviewed local demographic statistics and enrollment projections at an April 30 meeting that showed how birth rates are lower than they were before the pandemic. Housing developments currently under construction across Mountain View aren’t expected to generate many students for the school district, either. Rob Murray, director of demographics from King Consulting, told the board that the district could be looking at a downward enrollment trend for the next several years.
This school year, the district enrolled 4,645 students. Projected enrollment for next year dips to 4,603, and by the 2032-33 school year, King Consulting projects that enrollment will drop to 4,292.
Murray’s presentation came as part of a preliminary update to the board on Mountain View Whisman’s need to make changes to its Master Facilities Plan, which outlines projects and upgrades for its campuses. These updates aren’t expected to come until next school year, according to administrators.
The district first developed the Master Facilities Plan in 2019 to accommodate student growth, according to a district report. However, after the start of the pandemic, Mountain View Whisman, like many other districts across the state, saw a significant decline in enrollment. Since then, the student body has increased slightly but is still nowhere near pre-COVID levels.
Murray attributes the district’s recent growth in enrollment to the expansion of transitional kindergarten. Over the last few years, the state rolled out requirements to broaden eligibility for the optional program. Then, for the 2025-26 school year, TK became universally available to all 4-year-olds.
Data from Thursday’s presentation shows that for the 2022-23 school year, 102 students were enrolled in transitional kindergarten. This school year, when eligibility expanded, that number jumped to 247 students. Murray told the Voice that these increases have been “masking some of the underlying trends.”
“What doesn’t change is the size of that birth cohort,” Murray said, noting that the new state requirements just meant that the district could enroll more kids at once. “The number of kids who are a certain age for any given year is still trending down.”
When talking about birth cohorts, Murray is referring to the number of children born in a specific year to people who live within the district’s boundaries. In 2014, the number of local births was calculated at 726, according to his presentation. Last year, 596 local births were recorded, a 17.9% decrease.
Mountain View Whisman isn’t the only school district experiencing lower birth rates, Murray said. It’s a trend, seen not just in California but across the entire country, he added.
“Demographically, I don’t know of any area in the state, certainly in coastal California, where you are seeing natural demographic growth,” Murray said.
Along with birth rate data, Murray also looked at planned and proposed developments in the area to determine if it’s likely for these housing projects to generate district students. He found that there are about 10,000 new residences in the works within the district boundaries, which are anticipated to house approximately 460 elementary and middle school students.
Superintendent Jeff Baier told the Voice that King Consulting’s enrollment projections didn’t necessarily surprise him, given what he knows about California’s declining birth rates. He added that the information gleaned from the company’s analysis will be used to help ensure that the district’s Master Facilities Plan meets the needs of its students.
During the April 30 discussion, board member Devon Conley posed the question: “What size school is too small?” While this wasn’t answered at the meeting, district administrators are planning to come back to the board in September with more comprehensive data, as well as a draft of the updated facilities plan.
“Thoughtful planning is really important for an uninterrupted experience … for our students,” Baier said. “We try to prevent as many rough spots as possible for students and their families.”
My kids are long gone but with home buyers still seeing our schools as mostly high quality for the last 5-10 years under the last and this Supt (based on my house value going up up up and faster than my sister’s place in a nearby city ) I think we are doing as best as we can expect. People still pay a premium to buy a house in our school district vs many other nearby school districts.
I flatly don’t think that’s true. The schools in the northern part of the district aren’t so highly rated.
You might need to update your mental rankings.
Vargas -8
Monta Loma – 7
Mistral – 7
The worst school is theaurkrauf which is a 5 and only because it has lots of poorer students that have a large gap to close.
Hasn’t it been enough years by now that they can start calling it Mountain View instead of Mountain View Whisman?
It’s not too soon to start making plans for what to do with shuttered campuses.
Back when we were working on the Measure G upgrades and expansions, we talked a lot about a 450-student-per-school guideline, which translated to 3 classrooms (or “strands”) per grade, enabling differentiated instruction to get students of different levels what they needed. Today, teachers have increasingly capable tools to help them cover different subjects or adjust plans based on student needs, and administrators have tools that should help immensely with being productive with a small staff… so it’s more about how big a school needs to be to sustain a viable school community, garner support, and sustain its school culture. Unless we are going to go back to busing, neighborhood schools seem like the thing to prioritize, even if it means schools feeling a little on the small side.
If the community wants to boost enrollment, look at the public/private mix in Mountain View, and figure out how to tilt that percentage towards public. It can be a huge swing factor.
Excellent comment
Yes, that is an excellent comment!
It would be enlightening to see the latest enrollment data for each school and also the number of expected new housing units within the attendance boundaries of each school. I would expect any experienced Board Member to know the answer to Devon Conley’s question “What sized school is too small?” and also know the reason why continuing to operate one or more schools that are too small is a bad idea. (There’s also an interesting article in today’s (May 8, 2026) New York Times looking at this issue nationally.)
I think the short answer is the answer depends on cost to run the small school. There are many small elementary schools in California. The question is at what point is it more expensive to run a small school than a typical school. That’s when it’s too small.
You can run a school with one class in each grade (st jospehs does) but it could be too expensive.
Parents have been asking for small class sizes that are in neighborhood schools. I see declining enrollment as an opportunity to double down and keep all the schools open and really embrace smaller classes so that all kids can get their needs met. So, rather than closing schools and consolidating staff, minimize district overhead and keep the neighborhood schools open.