COVID pushes Henrico Schools' enrollment down by more than 1,400 students

The school system’s official enrollment as of Sept. 30 – 48,982 – was just about 140 students more than the unofficial count it released Sept. 21 and represents a decline of just more than 1,400 students from last year, according to data that will be presented to the Henrico School Board during its Nov. 12 work session.

The total enrollment is Henrico’s lowest since 2012 (when it was lower by just one student), driven by the effects of COVID-19, which caused some families to hold rising kindergartners back at a higher-than-normal rate and others to homeschool their children or enroll them in private schools.

The county’s kindergarten enrollment (3,084) is down nearly 600 students from last year, according to the data, while nearly 300 more students departed for private schools and almost 520 more left the system to be homeschooled.

Students who left the system appeared to do so at disproportionate rates from several schools:

• Nuckols Farm Elementary, whose Sept. 30 enrollment was 95 students fewer than projected;
• Moody Middle School (91 fewer);
• Tuckahoe Elementary (75 fewer);
• Pinchbeck Elementary (67 fewer);
• Glen Allen Elementary (63 fewer).

Only five of Henrico’s 46 elementary schools reported enrollments higher than projections, and only one of those – Ashe Elementary in Eastern Henrico (with 67) reported being more than 17 students over projection.

The data also shows the school system’s continued transition to a majority-minority student population during the past decade, with the populations of Asian, Hispanic and other minority students rising between 48% and 68% during that time, while the number of white students decreased by 21%.

Whites, who composed 45% of the system’s student population in 2011, now compose just 35%, while those described as Asian, Hispanic and “other” compose nearly 30% today, compared with just 18% then.

During the same timeframe, the percentage of students described as economically disadvantaged has increased from 37% to 45%, according to the data.

Henrico’s elementary school pupil-to-teacher ratio continued its steady decline, dropping to 18.7 this year, down from 19.5 last year and a recent peak of 21.4 in 2014.

The middle school ratio dropped from 18.9 to 18.3 this year, while the high school ratio increased slightly, from 19.2 to 19.5.

Racial imbalances remain evident at a number of county schools. Eleven schools have student populations that are 80% or more Black, while four have populations that are 70% or more white and three are more than 50% Asian.

The school with the highest percentage of white students is Tuckahoe Elementary (92%), which serves a mostly upper-class section of the Near West End.

Ratcliffe Elementary in Eastern Henrico has the highest percentage of Black students (nearly 94%), while Rivers Edge Elementary (65%) has the highest percentage of Asian students, and Johnson Elementary (49%) has the highest percentage of Hispanic students.

The school with the highest percentage of multi-racial students is Carver Elementary School, with 9.4%.

Skipwith Elementary arguably is the county’s most diverse school, with about 27% Black students, 23% white, 23% Asian and 23% Hispanic.