Long Beach : Schools Report Record Increase of 2,940 Students
School administrators expected more students this year--but not this many.
With a record increase of 2,940 students, the Long Beach Unified School District enrolled 71,476 students through the end of the first month of this academic year. Administrators were expecting an increase of about 1,500.
“This is the largest one-year enrollment increase in the history of the school district,” spokesman Dick Van Der Laan said this week. “Right now, we’re OK. But if next year we get the same increase, we would be at capacity at all of our schools.”
The number of students peaked in 1963, when enrollment reached 74,564. The lowest was in 1979, when it hit 55,263. It has been steadily increasing ever since.
In recent years, most of the growth has been in the elementary schools. This year, the elementary schools enrolled 37,726 students, the highest in the district’s history.
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