Statewide enrollment is up a bit; Tulsa enrollment keeps dropping

Oklahoma’s public schools have a slightly increasing student population, according to numbers released by the State Department of Education.

Tulsa Public Schools are losing students – 2,059 in the past five years with 540 in the past year.

Broken Arrow stayed virtually the same (11 fewer students) while other districts had minor drops, including Owasso (101), Skiatook (115), Union (74) and Sperry (73).

Jenks gained 146 students, Glenpool added six, Keystone had 30 new students, Collinsville went up 44 and Bixby had the biggest increase – 237 more students.

As of October 1, 2018, the annual student count statewide showed that 698,586 students were enrolled in Pre-K through 12th grade for the 2018-19 school year, a half-percent increase (about 4,000 students statewide) over the previous school year.

This year’s enrollment shows only an 8 percent increase over the last 11 years.

The ranking of the 10 largest public school districts remained unchanged from 2017-18, with Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Edmond topping the list, respectively.

Other state districts by descending order of size are Moore, Putnam City, Broken Arrow, Norman, Union, Midwest City-Del City and Lawton.

Currently, Oklahoma has 512 traditional public school districts, 1,802 traditional school sites, 26 charter schools and four virtual charter schools.

Demographic polling showed a slight shift in the racial makeup of Oklahoma’s schoolchildren. The number of those claiming two or more races, Hispanic or Asian/Pacific Islander ethnicities rose, while the Caucasian, black and American Indian populations dropped.

All differences were fewer than 1 percent. The largest race identified in polling was Caucasian at 48.47 percent.