Enrollment across the Santa Barbara Unified School District has plummeted by 16% over the last 11 years—with a large drop at Santa Barbara High School, where the decline was 21%.
The fall in enrollment was a point of conversation Wednesday, as students returned to school to start the new year.
Factors such as lower birth rates and a higher cost of living are the biggest factors to the district-wide trend, said Ed Zuchelli, the spokesperson for the district.
“Our exit data for students who actually attend our District shows families are moving to new attendance boundaries to our feeder districts, out of the county, out of the state, or a new country,” Zuchelli said. “The number of students who are leaving for private schools is about even with the number of students who enter from private schools.”
He said the district is not seeing a trend of internal factors impacting families’ decisions to leave the district.
“Beyond the birth rate analysis we conduct, we also review what happens when those babies grow up to become our students,” Zuchelli said. “We are seeing the decline in births continue into actual enrollment in our elementary classrooms at SB Unified.”
Preliminary enrollment data for the 2026-2027 school year will be available in the next 10 days.
The News-Press obtained the declining enrollment numbers from the California Department of Education.
The drop is part of a larger declining enrollment trend impacting school districts statewide.
But some schools are feeling the impacts of the trend more than others.
Santa Barbara High School
Santa Barbara High School’s enrollment has declined approximately 21% in 11 years, which was the highest of any high school in the district. Dos Pueblos fell by 1% and San Marcos by 7%.
“As far as what we’re in control of, we’re building community with our students, trying to offer as much support as they need, whether it’s academic or mental health,” Santa Barbara High School Principal Ed Gomez said about retaining students. “And then our academics, our pathways, athletics, arts and just offering a wide variety of courses, choices for students.”
Santa Barbara Junior High
At Santa Barbara Junior High School, which feeds into Santa Barbara High, enrollment has declined by 34%. Enrollment at Goleta Valley Junior High School, La Colina Junior High School and La Cumbre have fallen by 4.3%, 5.8% and 14.8% respectively. However, enrollment increased slightly this year, said Santa Barbara Junior High School Principal Valarie LaBrentz.
Santa Barbara Community Academy
Declining enrollment at Santa Barbara Community Academy, a TK-6 school, has even led to questions about the future of the school.
Enrollment has fallen at SBCA by 31% over the past 11 years. The district has told parents that the school could face closure or merge with La Cumbre Junior High School, which shares a campus with SBCA, to form a TK-8 school.
Dr. Bradley Brock, who serves as the principal of both La Cumbre and SBCA, acknowledged the uncertainty parents were facing, saying “it’s always hard to hear” about changes in their child’s school and that he’s made an effort to “go above and beyond when listening to their concerns.”
Arturo Valentin, the father of an SBCA fifth grader, said that some of his friends who are also SBCA parents transferred their children to Peabody Charter School or Harding University Partnership School this year as a result of the uncertainty.
“Many parents feel like they were tearing apart everything at SBCA, like they were removing support from SBCA,” said Valentin. Despite the uncertainty, he said that the district has offered more support for the school this year.
The district won’t have final enrollment numbers for the new school year until October.
Another school year
The News-Press visited these three campuses as part of a media tour on Wednesday.
School leaders at those sites have embraced the start of the new school year and are taking on ambitious goals for the year ahead.
Santa Barbara Community Academy first grade teacher Heather John wants to build a love of reading in her students.
After the first year of the district’s targeted literacy screening going into effect, John said the number of first graders at SBCA below literacy standards has dropped 50%.
Over at Santa Barbara Junior High, LaBrentz is starting as the school’s new principal, but she’s not new to Santa Barbara. A UCSB alumna and wife to a Santa Barbara High graduate, she made the decision to move back to Santa Barbara with her family after working in the Kern High School District in Bakersfield for nine years.
This year, she hopes to strengthen Social and Emotional Learning in the classroom, a measure that focuses on the development of the “whole child,” by fostering a “culture of care” and good behavior such as self-awareness.
Accountability is another behavior she hopes to strengthen, especially as new district restrictions on student technology use go into effect.
“It will be a little adjustment but it’s the best thing for kids,” LaBrentz said. “All that noise goes away.”
Some teachers this year are embracing a less technology-reliant curriculum.
Miranda Jue, a ninth-grade English teacher at Santa Barbara High, said her class will be focusing more on “timed writes” or essays written with pencil and paper, as opposed to on a computer.
“It’s in order to prepare them, not only to build their writing skills as an individual but also to prepare them for college, because a lot of our colleges and universities are starting to scale back on digital finals and digital assignments,” Jue said.
Eighth grade science teacher and former Santa Barbara County Teacher of the Year (2010-2011), Marilyn Garza, said her curriculum has already been moving toward a less tech-heavy one.
For Santa Barbara Junior High AVID teacher, Kareem Battle, another school year means another opportunity to shape students’ lives during an especially transitional moment.
In the same classroom he’s been for 27 years, adorned with posters that read “Dope Black Educator” and pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, he told students to practice “having fun in the struggle.”
“Nothing’s going to just be given to you,” Battle explained. “The end result is coming no matter what, so might as well enjoy the process.”
