Falling enrollment in Prince William has school system officials taking a deep dive into population trends and how to mitigate the uneven distribution of students across the division’s 100 schools. 

The school division, which serves roughly 90,000 students, is dealing with falling enrollment numbers due to a variety of issues, including declining birth rates and outmigration, officials said during a joint meeting between the School Board and Board of County Supervisors Oct. 8.

Each year, after Sept. 30, the school division counts its students, evaluates grade levels and uses those as a baseline to inform five-year projections for elementary and middle school and seven-year projections for high school, said Matthew Cartlidge, the supervisor of planning and capital improvements program for the division.

“At this time in the calendar year, it’s a bit preemptive for us to have detailed conversations about new trends, new data, simply for the fact that the team is currently working on the student enrollment projections using our new Sept. 30 data as a baseline,” Cartlidge said.

The division redesigned its model two years ago, which has provided more accurate projections. The industry standard was previously a 1% projection error per year into the future.

With the onset of the pandemic, Cartlidge said, many changes have come into public education. 

“That cone of variance surrounding data projections for student enrollment has increased,” he said. “Many sources are now saying it should be increased to 2 to 3% projection error for every one year you go into the future.”

Preliminary data shows the division’s enrollment projection error was just 0.3% for 2025.

Population change

Population change continues to affect the K-12 student enrollment numbers in Prince William, Cartlidge said.

Population decline was recently recorded in Northern Virginia for the first time since the earliest record in 1970. One contributing factor is continued outmigration from Prince William and Northern Virginia more broadly to places where the cost of living is more affordable, such as the greater Richmond metropolitan area and the Tidewater region.

Birth rates have also been declining. Prince William has experienced an overall declining birth rate since 2014, with preliminary data from the Virginia Department of Health showing 5,717 births in 2023-24, continuing the downward trend.

“This is really important K-12 enrollment projections because those births are tied to what is your kindergarten class five years into the future, as those children age in place,” Cartilage said. “With decreasing births, you then have typically smaller kindergarten cohorts, which then matriculate throughout your school division and you have a base that’s much more constrained in your older grade levels.”

School Board Chairman Dr. Babur Lateef pointed to information from the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia that said by 2030 Virginia will lose 100,000 students; 60% of all students in Virginia are in Northern Virginia, and 7% are in Prince William County.

“We need babies,” Lateef said. “We are taking a hit.”

Because of the changes, the student enrollment population pyramid in Prince William County is now top-heavy, with constrictions at its base.

“The takeaway is the lower grade levels are significantly smaller than our upper grade levels. If you hold everything else constant, just let these children progress and matriculate throughout the 12 grade levels, you’re going to have decreasing enrollment,” Cartlidge said.

The school system, in tandem with the county government, also tracks new residential construction in the county.

Preliminary data shows approximately 1,500 new housing units constructed in 2025, roughly 300 more units than initially projected by the county.

While actual rates of new construction in Prince William show a general decreasing trend over the last several years, future projected rates of new construction show a general increasing trend.

Prince William is seeing a trend of decreasing student enrollment over the next five years, with projections suggesting a decrease of 3,776 students over that time period.

“Growth is a big issue in the county, and a number of people mention schools – they want to make sure that our schools have capacity,” said Board of County Supervisors Chair Deshundra Jefferson. Jefferson went on to ask if falling enrollment is evident across the county or if it’s seen in some areas more than others.

The falling enrollment is not uniform across the county, Cartlidge said, and there are pockets in the county where student enrollment projections exceed the capacity of schools. 

Overcrowding has been an issue in a number of local schools across, notably Covington-Harper Elementary School in Dumfries, where there are currently 13 trailer classrooms.

Erica Tredinnick, the Brentsville District School Board member, added there are several schools in her western-Prince William district that are “very overcrowded,” which has been mitigated with trailers.

“I have not been shy at all about proposing a redistricting,” Tredinnick said.

Tredinnick added, though, that her district also has multiple schools that are undercrowded, suggesting redistricting could fix the issue.

Superintendent LaTanya McDade said the first line of defense against closing a school that is significantly under capacity is to redistrict with nearby schools if they are over capacity.

If redistricting is the route the school system ultimately turns to to balance overcrowding and falling enrollment, it will not be without bumps in the road, Lateef said.

“Some things are not going to be popular, and so we’re trying to do [redistricting or other actions] in the least painful way for the public,” Lateef said. “The public doesn’t like to be moved, you know – they buy a house in a certain area and expect to go to that school. So, you’re going to hear it from them when we start doing this.”