California Public Schools Suffer Record Enrollment Drop Tuesday, January 26, 2021 | Sacramento, CA Students at Pinewood Elementary in Pollock Pines have been attending school in-person since Oct. 6. They come to school in shifts, belong to the same cohorts, and sit six feet apart in the classroom. Courtesy of Pollock Pines Superintendent Steve Martinez California’s K-12 public-school enrollment has precipitously declined during the pandemic, dropping by a record 155,000 students, according to new state projections. That drop-off is about five times greater than California’s annual rate of enrollment decline in recent years. The state, which boasts the largest student enrollment in the country, has seen a steady decline of between 20,000 and 30,000 students in its public schools in the two years prior partly due to declining birth rates, and the state had predicted a similar rate of decline to continue.