California’s public school enrollment has declined over the past decade.

• About 5.8 million students currently attend California’s public schools. That number includes 178,000 students in transitional kindergarten, which expanded eligibility to all four-year-olds in 2025–26.
• Enrollment has fallen by 7% (about 429,000 students) over the last decade. The steepest declines occurred between 2019 and 2021.
• Enrollment changes vary by region. About 70% of districts have faced enrollment declines, with the biggest declines in large coastal districts such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, and San Francisco. Enrollment grew in some Central Valley districts, the Sierra foothills, and some northern parts of the state.

California’s student population is highly diverse.

• Roughly 60% of students are Latino, 20% are white, 10% are Asian, and 5% are Black. While the number of Latino students has fallen, the share is growing. Of all students, 17% are English Learners (ELs).
• Around 64% of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, and roughly 4% are homeless (about 230,000 students). Foster youth make up 0.5% of the student population (27,500 students).
• The share of students with disabilities is 14% (827,000 students).
• Estimates suggest that 3% are undocumented and 22% have at least one undocumented parent, down slightly over the last decade.
• About half identify as female (51%); 49% identify as male. Approximately 5,000 students identify as nonbinary (less than 0.1% of enrollment), up from 300 in 2019 when the state began collecting this information.

Enrollment declines are steepest among English Learners—but linguistic diversity is growing.

• The state’s enrollment declines are largely concentrated among multilingual learners. Enrollment fell by 15% among students who were current or former English Learners; enrollment changes among students who only speak English at home were minimal.
• Spanish is still the most common language spoken among English Learners (80%). Mandarin, Vietnamese, Russian, and Persian round out the top five languages, with the number of Russian speakers nearly doubling over the past decade.
• Most of California’s students who have limited proficiency in English are US citizens (76%), which is higher than in the nation as a whole (69%). This share has fallen somewhat over time in both California and the US.

More families are choosing charter and home-school options, especially since the pandemic.

• About 12.5% of students are in charter schools, up from 9% in 2014–15. Latino students make up more than half of all charter school students but are underrepresented in terms of their overall share of the population. Asian students make up a smaller share of charter school students (6%) than public school students (10%); white and Black students are slightly overrepresented in charter schools. Socioeconomically disadvantaged and EL students are slightly underrepresented.
• More than 51,000 students are home-schooled (0.8% of enrollment), a doubling over the last decade. Private school enrollment increased during the pandemic but has since fallen to 494,000 students (8%).

Changes in the K–12 population will present new challenges for the public school system.

• California’s student population is likely to continue to decrease, with larger declines in counties with higher concentrations of English Learner students. At the same time, the diversity of EL students is increasing, as are rates of homelessness and socioeconomic disadvantage.
• Districts will have to balance serving fewer students efficiently (e.g., through school consolidation) while supporting diverse and high-need communities effectively. Because of California’s budgeting rules, per student funding may increase in the future.