If every Tucson Unified School District student took a seat in Arizona Stadium, there would still be room for a McKale Center sellout crowd, new enrollment data projections show.
Southern Arizona’s largest school district is projected to see a 3.3% decline from last year to about 35,000 students, according to Arizona Department of Education data.
That’s a nearly $8 million loss in per-pupil spending, according to TUSD’s revised budget, which was unanimously approved by the Governing Board Tuesday night.
“Declining enrollment has the single-biggest impact on our bottom line,” TUSD Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernández told the board.
School enrollment projections by the Arizona Department of Education for Fiscal Year 2026 are based on average daily membership. That’s the average number of students enrolled and attending a school each day during the first 100 days of the school year. It is based on daily enrollment and on the instructional minutes required by law for each grade level.
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The current decline mirrors the last quarter-century. TUSD data shows just over 60,000 students in 2000. By 2015, it was about 48,000.
Overall, some TUSD grades show growth over last year: Kindergarten, fourth, seventh and 11th grades are all on track to gain students, according to state data projections. The official student count comes on Day 100, that’s in late January for TUSD.
Administrators say declining enrollment is due to the rise in families using Arizona’s vouchers and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to homeschool or attend private schools as well as declining birth rates in Pima County.
The falling numbers mean a drop in funding and can force districts to close neighborhood schools or right-size their districts.
“We are in a do-or-die struggle for enrollment,” TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said Tuesday. “We have to think big and we have to fire big.”
Part of that vision is playing to district strengths, including its mariachi and other music programs in the 88 schools. Expanding these programs would invite more students into the district and ideally keep them through graduation, Trujillo said Tuesday night as growing programs were discussed.
TUSD proposed expanding campuses at Davis Bilingual Elementary and Rincon/University High School. Those plans were unveiled at Tuesday’s meeting and include more than $10 million — mostly in bond money that was approved by voters in 2023 — to replace portable buildings and expand classrooms. The board passed the Rincon/UHS expansion and tabled voting on Davis until January.
at Davis Bilingual Magnet School. Photo credit: Shannon Conner Credit: Shannon Conner
Davis is known for its mariachi and dual-language immersion programs. It has about 300 students in grades K-5 and a waiting list of 124 students this year. Rincon/University’s award-winning band program attracts students from across the Tucson area and has about 1,100 students. Two schools are housed on one midtown campus and combine to field sports teams and extracurricular activities.
“We’re getting students (at Davis) that would not be enrolled in TUSD at all, so that’s a huge potential that TUSD has to captivate those students and get them into the TUSD enrollment,” said Cruz Silva, Davis parent and vice president of the parent-teacher association.
“Each school has a unique feature that they should capitalize on. If they just build classrooms alone, they will not increase enrollment,” Silva told Arizona Luminaria. “By investing in these music programs, they’re going to capture more students and that’s exactly what they have to do.”
Amphi school closure plan goes to board
Amphitheater Public Schools superintendent Todd Jaeger made his formal recommendation Tuesday night to the Governing Board to close four schools before next school year.
A swell of parent support aimed to table the closure of Copper Creek, Holaway, Donaldson and Nash elementaries. But the board is expected to vote on the closures at its Jan. 13 meeting.
The 22-school district has capacity for 19,000 students but currently has just under 11,000, Jaeger told the audience at Tuesday’s meeting.
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