Demographics of CUSD continuing to shift

Letter

By on Thu, October 22, 2009

About a year ago, I wrote a piece here, "Analysis: CUSD likely to start growing soon, becoming majority Hispanic", that began,

Enrollment in the Cabrillo Unified School District (CUSD) may be about to increase for the first time in a decade if recent demographic trends continue, and the school population is about to become majority Hispanic.

The Ed-Data website, which publishes statistics on the California public school system, has just added district profiles for the 2008-09 school year, and two items jump out.

  • Hispanic students now outnumber non-Hispanic white students.
  • Though white enrollment continued to shrink, Hispanic enrollment grew sufficiently that overall district enrollment rose, slightly, for the first time in many years.

I have nothing new to add to my comments, except that existing enrollment trends continued for another year, and to hope that between now and the next school board election, now a year away, we’ll have a productive discussion of the implications of district demographic trends.