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CPS enrollment falls to about 316,224 students; district reports sharp decline in new enrollments for SY26
Summary
CPS reported enrollment at 316,224 for the 2025–26 year — roughly 9,000 fewer students than the prior year — driven mainly by fewer new students entering preschool, kindergarten and ninth grade and by a decline in new Latinx and English-learner enrollments.
Chicago Public Schools’ Insights & Research team told the board on Oct. 23 that district enrollment for the 2025–26 school year stands at 316,224 students, a drop of just over 9,000 from the previous year.
"This year, the district's enrollment is 316,224 students," Sarah Kempner, executive director of Insights and Research, reported, noting that the decrease is driven primarily by a substantial drop in the number of new students joining the district compared with previous years. Kempner said new student enrollment fell to a little over 38,000 this year — a key driver of the overall decline.
Declines were concentrated at traditional entry and transition grades — preschool, kindergarten and ninth grade — and were observed across most school types, with preschool and charter elementary schools among those seeing the largest drops. Kempner also reported a modest increase in students with individualized education plans (IEPs) even as overall enrollment declined.
On departures, the second-largest single exit code category was students transferring out of Chicago, Kempner said; exit-code data do not always capture nuanced reasons for leaving, she cautioned. The district will continue to analyze attendance and retention data and to provide updates to the board.
Board members asked follow-up questions about using exit surveys to understand why families leave, whether trends predate recent enforcement activity and if short-term attendance declines at specific schools are visible in the data. Kempner said the district runs annual parent surveys and will consider targeted follow-ups while cautioning that survey response bias is possible.
What happens next: CPS staff said attendance reports and more fine-grained analyses will be provided to board members; the enrollment trends will inform staffing, boundary and budget planning for upcoming budget cycles.
