Enrollment at Santa Barbara High School and the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) has been in decline. Dos Pueblos has 2,150 enrolled students, San Marcos has 1,930, and Santa Barbara has 1,910 enrolled. These numbers are down compared to five years earlier when SBHS had 2,150 enrolled students. According to Assistant Principal Natalie Spevak, in the 10th grade the school gets new students that were not here for freshman year. This is because many students who went to a K-9th grade school join public high school for sophomore year. Many people who are homeschooled or went to private school also come to SBHS just senior year, therefore the senior class may seem much bigger than the others. Another reason is that the WIN program has students at SBCC who are continuing their education but are still counted as SBHS students.

There are many factors involved in declining enrollment. The most significant one is pathways. Students are going to different high schools depending on the pathways offered instead of deciding based on location. At SBHS we offer the Multimedia Arts and Design (MAD) Academy, the Visual Arts and Design Academy (VADA), and the Computer Science Academy (CSA). Meanwhile at San Marcos they offer the Accelerated Academic Program for Leadership and Enrichment (AAPLE) academy, Entrepreneurship Academy, and the Health Academy. Over at Dos Pueblos they have the Engineering Academy. Many students are going to a high school specifically for one of these pathways.

Another factor is simply population decline. You might have heard the term “boomers” or “baby boomers”. This is referring to the era during WWII where more people were having children causing population numbers to spike. But that baby boom is long over, and millennials and Gen-X are not having children at the same frequency as previous generations. Therefore, less students are enrolled in high schools. 

Another overlooked factor is online learning. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, students across our nation were forced to switch to online learning. When the pandemic ended and schools opened up again, some families decided to stick with online learning because it better suited their child. Nowadays there are hundreds of different online learning platforms that offer a full high school education, which digs into public high school enrollment levels.The effects of declining numbers also include staffing; with less students at school we don’t need as many staff members.  Ms. Spevak states, “A beloved project gets bumped, or a staff member needs to relocate and that can impact our community.” She explained that many things are affected by enrollment being lower, such as facilities and how the school schedule is built.

Looking at numbers of enrollment at SBHS from 2017 to now, the numbers increase until 2020, when they were at the highest at 2,200. Starting in 2017, the number was at 2,110. In 2018 we were at 2,150, and 2019 the numbers stayed stagnant at 2,150. Freshman numbers for this year are down to about 430 freshmen, while the sophomore class has 480 this year. While the number of students who do attend sophomore year is relatively small, there is definitely a change. Ms. Spevak reminds us that our SBHS community is here to support each other, and that’s how we are still able to keep our programs strong.