White Enrollment Drops Again, New Census Shows

The latest ethnic census of students in the San Diego Unified School District shows the number of whites continues to decline, dropping to 39% this year from 41.4% a year ago and from 43% in 1988.

Latino enrollment continues to show large increases, rising to 25.6% from 23.2% a year ago. Black enrollment remained steady at 16.2%, Filipino enrollment remained at 8% and Indochinese enrollment rose to 7.7% from 7.6% a year ago, the report indicates.

The latest figures continue a trend that has seen white enrollment decline from more than 80,000 students in 1976 to 46,000, while minority enrollment has increased from 41,000 to 72,000.

Total district enrollment is 118,600 students, now exceeding 1976 levels, after having dropped to fewer than 110,000 students in the early 1980s. White enrollment is even smaller in the district’s 107 elementary schools, at 37.8%. The drop compounds district problems in maintaining integration programs and puts greater pressure on administrators to boost achievement of Latino and black students, who lag behind Asian and white students.

Throughout the county, 57% of all students are white, 23.2% Latino, 8.3% black, 5% Filipino and 4.9% Indochinese.

San Diego city schools trustees Tuesday asked Supt. Tom Payzant for additional data on whether white enrollment is dropping proportionately to school population growth in the northern areas of the city, which are covered by the suburban San Dieguito and Poway school districts.