Fewer students are choosing Philadelphia district schools
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Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
Philadelphia families continue to flee the city's public schools, new data shows.
Why it matters: The declining student population will likely influence a long-awaited district plan to close some schools and merge and repurpose others.
📉 By the numbers: The district's enrollment dipped this year by nearly 800 students compared to 2024-25, per district data.
- Current population: 113,735.
- Notably, the district saw 249 fewer first-grade students enroll this year than in 2024. (Kindergarten isn't mandatory in Pennsylvania.)
- Enrollment in alternative schools fell by more than 260 compared to last year.
🏫 Threat level: The district has lost roughly 16,500 students in total at its district-led and alternative schools since the 2014-15 academic year, per district data.
- Enrollment has declined every year during that stretch with the exception of last year.
📈 Meanwhile, Philly's charter school student population is going in the other direction, rising more than 500 students year-over-year.
- And cyber charter schools added nearly 600 students to their rolls, per district data.
Between the lines: Superintendent Tony Watlington and district leaders continue to draw up formal plans for the future of the district's more than 300 buildings.
- It has roughly 70,000 more seats than it needs throughout the city (although, some schools are overpopulated), per the Inquirer.
- And Watlington has hinted that schools will have a minimum student population, per the outlet.
- The plan is due out in early 2026, but the district has delayed its release once already.
What they're saying: Despite a long-term trend of falling student population, district spokesperson Monique Braxton told Axios that declining enrollment isn't expected to be the norm going forward but declined to reveal what that forecast is based on.
- "We definitely feel Dr. Watlington's approach to enrollment … is working," she added.
The other side: Lisa Haver, co-founder of the district watchdog group Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools, told Axios that declining enrollment is the result of closing schools, a lack of student safety, and poorly maintained and hazardous school buildings.
- "The school board and district administration needs to do more to make people welcome and more to bring people into public schools," she said. "Closing schools and not being honest with people isn't doing those things."
The big picture: Other large cities have also been grappling with declining student enrollment for years.