Enrollment Increase Marks Turnaround in Garden Grove

This year’s growth in enrollment at the Garden Grove Unified School District, the county’s second-largest, has reversed a 20-year downward trend.

And higher birth rates in the areas served by the district indicate that the increase in student enrollment will continue, district officials say.

Figures from the district’s office of business services show an increase of 561 students this year over last school year, bringing enrollment to 36,725, a 1.6% increase.

The district’s enrollment peaked in the 1968-69 school year with 53,114, when it was then the county’s largest district.

A recently released state report examining birth rates projected large increases in California’s school enrollment. District information officer Alan Trudell said that birth rates in the cities the district serves--Garden Grove, and portions of Santa Ana, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Stanton, Cypress and Anaheim--indicate that growth in the district is expected to keep going up.

The latest data available shows that in 1987 Garden Grove’s birth rate was 19.5 per 1,000, while for Santa Ana, which provides 25% of the district’s children, the birth rate was 33.9 per 1,000, nearly twice the county average, Trudell said.