OKLAHOMA CITY - For the first time in state history, Oklahoma’s public school enrollment has topped 700,000 students.
According to data released Dec. 6 by the Oklahoma State Department of Education, 703,560 students are enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade for the 2019-2020 school year as of Oct. 1. That figure represents an increase of 5,064 from the previous school year – roughly equivalent to the current combined enrollment of Jackson County’s five school districts. It also represents an increase of 49,108 students from a decade ago, which is slightly less than the population of Grady County. Although enrollment dropped in both districts, Oklahoma City and Tulsa Public Schools maintained the top two positions among the 10 most populous districts. Including students attend- ing district-sponsored charter schools, Oklahoma City Public Schools has 42,513 students, while Tulsa Public Schools has 38,509. Edmond, Moore, Broken Arrow, Epic One-on-One, Norman, Tulsa Union, and Midwest City-Del City round out the rest of the state’s 10 largest districts.
The student count at the online charter school has more than doubled from the 2017- 2018 school year, growing by 9,047 pupils as of Oct. 1. That increase is larger than the entire enrollment for the 12 public school districts in Stephens and Tillman counties combined. Those numbers do not include the 10,092 Epic students who live in Tulsa and Oklahoma counties. Those students are automatically counted in the enrollment for the charter school’s blended learning sites in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, making the blended learning sites the state’s 14th largest district.
Demographic information showed little change in the racial and ethnic makeup of Oklahoma students since fall 2018. Minority students account for 52% of public school students statewide, with the largest numbers among Hispanic and Indigenous students. White students account for the remaining 48%. Despite the enrollment growth statewide, the numbers are slightly more mixed for school districts in Comanche, Jackson, Kiowa, Stephens and Tillman counties. Fourteen school districts in the five-county region reported enrollment growth from the previous year, including Altus, Bray-Doyle, Cache, Davidson, Duncan, Elgin, Fletcher, Geronimo, Lone Wolf and Snyder.
However, almost as many school districts in the region reported a decrease in enrollment, including Blair, Frederick, Hobart, Indiahoma, Lawton, Marlow, Navajo, Sterling, and Tipton. Among the region’s school districts, Lawton Public Schools remains the largest. Despite enrollment dropping 0.89%, or 269 students, from the previous academic year, the Comanche County district has 13,679 students enrolled as of Oct. 1, making it the state’s 11th largest school district. With 3,484 students, Duncan Public Schools remains the region’s second-largest district, followed by Altus, Elgin and Cache to round out the top five. The numbers come on the heels of a budget request to increase common education funding for the coming fiscal year. In late October, the Oklahoma Board of Education approved a $3.29 billion budget request for 2021 that, if approved, would place per-pupil funding back at the same level it was in 2009.