Arlington Public Schools kicked off the school year with an enrollment of 27,173, down 1.6% from last year.
The figure, which counts students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, is down from 27,603 reported during the first week of the 2025-26 school year.
It is off by 2.2% compared to a springtime projection and is likely to evolve, up or down, through Sept. 30, when school divisions report final attendance figures to the Virginia Department of Education.
The enrollment total as of Sept. 1 — the second day of classes — is part of a presentation slated to be given to School Board members Sept. 10 by Superintendent Francisco Durán.
No matter what, the next three weeks are unlikely to bring in enough students to meet the 27,776 students anticipated when Arlington Public Schools updated its 2026-27 projection in the spring. Enrollment projections are a tricky business, especially in the long term.
A decade ago, when enrollment was hovering just below 27,000, school officials released projections suggesting student enrollment would reach 30,000 by 2021 and 32,000 by 2026 — with the possibility of up to 39,000 by 2026 if growth rates exceeded expectations.
A combination of pandemic impacts and changing county demographics blunted those growth estimates. Last spring, school officials projected enrollment levels to be flat or declining through 2035.
Arlington’s student population reached a local peak of 26,926 during the height of the Baby Boom in 1963. It then began a steady decline before bottoming out at less than 15,000 students in the 1980s, and remained below 20,000 for much of the first decade of the 21st century.
In 2017, enrollment topped the Baby Boom peak for the first time, although the more recent figures include pre-kindergarten, which was not offered in the 1960s-70s.
Official counts submitted to state officials over the past decade are as follows, according to various media reports at the time:
- 2025: 27,589 students
- 2024: 27,900 students
- 2023: 27,564 students
- 2022: 27,455 students
- 2021: 26,911 students
- 2020: 26,895 students
- 2019: 28,020 students
- 2018: 27,436 students
- 2017: 26,927 students
In the report set to be delivered to School Board members, APS leadership will note that the school year started with 99.05% of all staff positions filled. There were 27 vacancies — 19 full-time and eight part-time — waiting to be filled.
The rate is down minimally from the 99.3% staffing level Durán reported at the start of the 2025-26 school year.
