Chicago Public Schools has lost more than 11,500 students since the start of last school year, marking the district's steepest enrollment drop since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a preliminary 20th-day enrollment report released by the district. The Illinois Policy Center published an analysis of the data, finding that CPS enrollment has now fallen to 304,687 students for the 2026-27 school year. The decline continues a decade-long trend that has left the district with 20% fewer students than it had 10 years ago.
CPS lost more students this year than in any year since fall 2020, when enrollment plummeted by nearly 14,500 students following pandemic-era school closures. The district continued shedding students over the next two years before seeing modest enrollment gains in 2023 and 2024. Those increases proved temporary: CPS dropped more than 9,000 students in 2025. With this year's decline, the district has now lost more than 20,000 students in just two school years, completely erasing the roughly 3,300 students it gained during 2023 and 2024. Over the past decade, CPS has lost more than 76,000 students—about 1-in-5 students. Going back further, the district saw 11 consecutive years of enrollment declines from 2011 through 2022 before the brief uptick.
The district attributed declining birth rates and migration trends as factors driving the latest enrollment slide, according to the report. The enrollment decline worsens a district already grappling with widespread underutilization: before this year's losses, 54% of CPS buildings were already underutilized, or more than 250 schools. The report notes that the district measures space utilization annually, categorizing schools as underutilized, efficient or overcrowded. Looking at district data, the average "space utilization rate" in 2025-2026 stood at 68% across 476 single-location schools—meaning the average CPS school is one-third empty.
The report explains that a series of moratoriums on school closures in Chicago have been in effect for years. The current ban was extended by the partially elected school board and is scheduled to expire after the 2026-2027 school year. The Chicago Teachers Union and some current board members rallied outside CPS headquarters Thursday to demand an extension on the closure moratorium, the same day the board meeting announced the enrollment numbers. The Illinois Policy Center recommends that the CPS board convene a Blue Ribbon Commission for facilities planning to assess the facility footprint, establish an ongoing framework to optimize facilities for student success, and set consistent minimum enrollment and performance standards. With enrollment continuing to fall, the new school board will face a choice: extend the school closure moratorium or allow it to expire and convene a comprehensive facilities-planning commission to determine how CPS should adapt to fewer students.