White Enrollment Continues to Drop at San Diego Schools

The white enrollment in San Diego city schools has continued to decline, dropping to 43% of the district’s 116,000 students from 44.8% a year ago, officials told the Board of Education on Tuesday.

Latino enrollment increased to 21.8% from 21%, black enrollment increased to 16.5% from 16.1%, Filipino enrollment rose to 7.9% from 7.6% and Indochinese enrollment rose to 7.5% from 7.3%.

The latest figures continue a trend that has seen white enrollment in city schools decline from almost 75,700 students in 1977-78 to 49,800 this year, while minority enrollment has increased from 42,600 in 1977-78 to 66,000 this year.

Assistant Supt. George Frey said current trends could see white enrollment drop below 40% within three to four years. Already the percentage of white students in elementary schools is 41.3%. As white students graduate from high schools, the overall percentage will drop further, Frey said.

Increasing Difficulty

In response to brief questions from board members, Frey said the figures indicate the increasing difficulty of maintaining the district’s voluntary integration programs. Those programs depend on white students being attracted to special magnet enrichment programs offered at minority-enrollment schools as well as a sufficient number of minority students voluntarily busing to predominantly white schools, where educational quality or the campus atmosphere is perceived to be superior.

Frey said that the district has fewer ABC--already balanced campus--schools than in past years because white families are moving to suburban areas. The district gives ABC schools such as Hoover High School special funds with which to plan academic programs to keep students from choosing other schools. But Frey said the funds are probably not enough to stem the tide.

Frey did say that increasing home construction in northern San Diego, which is predominantly white, could eventually lead to a bottoming out of the majority enrollment as children in those new areas reach school age. However, many of the northern San Diego city areas fall into boundaries of the neighboring Poway Unified School District and not into the San Diego Unified School District.