The Abridged version:
- The California Department of Finance recently released school population projections that show enrollment statewide declining by about 10% over the next decade. But many individual districts in the Sacramento region are preparing for growth.
- The Elk Grove Unified School District has plans to open four schools in the next five years. Other solutions to accommodate new students include adding onto existing sites.
- Placer County and the districts in it are readying for a steady increase in population. But school officials say a building boom is not necessarily the answer.
- A list shows growth rates over the next decade for 26 school districts in Placer, El Dorado, Yolo and Sacramento counties.
While districts across California are anticipating stagnant or shrinking school populations, several in the Sacramento region are readying to welcome more students in the coming years.
Statewide, enrollment is projected to decline about 10% over 10 years, according to newly released data from the California Department of Finance.
But suburbs in Sacramento County and western portions of Placer County are among the neighborhoods bucking the trend and preparing for growth.
Latest projections show at least 14 districts in the four-county region increasing enrollment between now and the 2034-35 school year. Ten districts, including Sacramento City Unified and Washington Unified in West Sacramento, are among those expected to decline.
New Elk Grove schools on the horizon
The Elk Grove Unified School District has already grown enough to become the state’s fourth largest school district, as of this year.
“I suspect, in time, we will move into the third largest,” said Kristen Coates, deputy superintendent of business services and facilities for Elk Grove Unified.
State projections show Elk Grove Unified steadily growing from now through the 2028-29 school year, hitting 65,682 students. Enrollment last school year was around 64,358 students, according to the state.
After that peak in a few years, state data shows Elk Grove Unified then declining, to an enrollment number that is 3.4% less than that of 2024-25. But Coates said the district is planning for steady and continued growth.
To accommodate additional pupils, Coates said the district has a multitude of solutions.
For schools that are expecting a contained bump in numbers, she said they can add on to an existing site with portable buildings or additional construction. In areas more rapidly growing, “new schools are absolutely needed.”
Elk Grove Unified will open Cypress Grove Elementary School, for grades TK-6, in the Rancho Cordova area this July. In the spring, Coates said the district will break ground on another TK-6 school in the Arbor Ranch area, with doors open by July 2027.
A new middle school and high school are also planned for the Rancho Cordova area, expected to be open within the next five years, Coates said.
The growth is not uniform within districts
Elk Grove Unified is seeing the majority of growth in the eastern and southern portions of the district, Coates said.
Elsewhere, she said enrollment is declining, as longstanding neighborhoods see school-age children growing up and graduating, but their parents staying behind in the same house.
There is a similar imbalance in the Roseville City School District, Superintendent Derk Garcia said.
Between Oct. 1 of last year and the same date this year, the elementary district gained 366 students, he said. All but six of those reside on the western side of Roseville.
“We have what I call a tale of two districts,” Garcia said. “We have plenty of seats available in our district. It’s just not in their neighborhood school, within that 2- or 3-mile radius.”
Students growing up in the swelling neighborhoods, he said, are distributed to schools in other parts of the district that have the room. But they stay within the same elementary to middle school feeder patterns, to keep from splitting up classmates and friend groups.
Roseville City takes cautious construction approach
The elementary district will open Winding Creek Elementary School in west Roseville in August. The TK-6 grade school will be able to accommodate 650 students, Garcia said.
Nearby, in the same growing area, the ongoing residential development Placer One plans to establish more than 5,000 new homes. Garcia said the district is anticipating 1,500 to 2,000 additional students from Placer One.
A new school to serve that community would likely open in 2030 at the earliest, the superintendent said.
Roseville City School District is expected to grow about 10.4% over the next decade, according to the state. Placer County, where the district sits, is in the minority of counties projected to see a steady increase in student population.
However, that growth does not automatically translate to a building boom.
“We build schools for 100 years from now,” Garcia said. The district does not want to build a quantity of new schools, only for them to sit empty in a few decades, he explained.
“If we don’t need to build a school, then in my mind, we’re being fiscally responsible by not building,” he added.
Growing pains to be expected
Roseville’s high school district is also expected to see an increase in enrollment, according to state projections, shooting from 12,865 students last school year to just shy of 14,500 in 2034-35.
Brandon Dell’Orto, a longtime educator at Roseville Joint Union High School District and president of the Roseville Secondary Education Association, said that the growth will surely come with challenges.
Adding onto current facilities can only go so far, Dell’Orto said. “You can always add another classroom. It’s a lot harder to add an extra gym or cafeteria.”
Once the school population outgrows those large gathering facilities, he said, the district will need a different solution. New construction is one option, but to do so requires extensive resources as well as space to build.
“That something else,” Dell’Orto said he believes, “is redrawing lines.”
The Granite Bay High School history teacher served on a previous redistricting committee for the district and said the process was startlingly contentious. He expects another round would be similarly conflicted.
However, Dell’Orto noted, that despite growing pains, a shrinking population is still a far worse fate for a district.
“In the context of problems,” he said, “this is the best kind to have.”
How much will Sacramento region school districts grow by 2035?
El Dorado County:
- Buckeye Union: 7.0%
- El Dorado Union High School: 5.5%
- Placerville Union: 1.3%
- Rescue Union: -15.2%
- Mother Lode Union: -24.2%
Placer County:
- Eureka Union: 26.6%
- Western Placer Unified: 20.3%
- Placer Hills Union: 12.4%
- Roseville Joint Union High School: 12.3%
- Roseville City: 10.4%
- Dry Creek Joint Elementary: 3.2%
- Rocklin Unified: 2.6%
- Newcastle Elementary: 1.8%
- Loomis Union: -5.2%
- Auburn Union: -10.9%
Sacramento County:
- Folsom Cordova Unified: 16.7%
- Twin Rivers Unified: 11.2%
- San Juan Unified: 8.5%
- Elk Grove Unified: -3.4%
- Galt Joint Union Elementary: -6.8%
- Natomas Unified: -7.4%
- Robla Elementary: -8.6%
- Sacramento City Unified: -9.7%
Yolo County:
- Washington Unified: -1.3%
- Davis Joint Unified: -7.5%
- Woodland Joint Unified: -7.8%
(NOTE: Districts not shown did not meet the state enrollment threshold for projection reporting.)
To see more numbers from your local district, explore the Department of Finance’s online data dashboard.