L.A. School District Predicts Record Enrollment This Fall

Predictions show Los Angeles public school enrollment rising to historic levels this fall, a growth that school officials say will tax the resources of already crowded campuses.

The estimates released by the Los Angeles Unified School District on Monday said this fall’s student body will be the largest ever, at nearly 657,500 students topping the previous 1968 high by 1,400 students.

District Supt. Sid Thompson expressed concern about the increase, saying he remembered the past peak as a time of high dropout rates triggered in part by the need to hold school in double sessions.

“Kids were dropping out all over the place,” said Thompson, who was an assistant principal at a district junior high in 1968. “It was atrocious for them.”

Furthermore, district statisticians looking at enrollment through the turn of the century predicted the growth will continue to a 2001 high of more than 667,000 students.