Baltimore City Schools record-low enrollment 76,362 despite $1.9B budget

Baltimore City Public Schools reports total enrollment of 76,362 students for 2025-26 while the district’s FY26 budget tops $1.9 billion and per-pupil spending approaches $25,000, a combination that local reporting says has left buildings underused and community leaders demanding change. District data show 37,795 students in pre-K to grade 5, 16,640 in grades 6-8 and 21,927 in grades 9-12 across 159 schools and programs.

The district demographic snapshot shows 69.2 percent African American students, 20.2 percent Hispanic or Latino, 7.2 percent White and a student body with 71.6 percent qualifying as low income, 14.4 percent multilingual learners and 15.1 percent students with disabilities. The schools and programs count includes one pre-K/kindergarten school, 39 elementary schools, 72 elementary/middle schools, four middle schools, 12 middle/high schools, 21 high schools, one combined elementary/middle/high campus and nine programs.

Local reporting has highlighted facility utilization as a pressure point: nearly 20 percent of schools reportedly run below 75 percent capacity despite the full district budget, a condition advocates say is driving renewed calls to consolidate buildings and reallocate resources. Planning Maryland’s historical review recalls a prior wave of closures: effective with the 2010 school year, ten Baltimore City schools and three in Baltimore County closed, affecting 2,152 students; “Affected students were offered a guaranteed spot in a school no more than five miles from their current school.”

Longer-term trends mirror the current drop. Files Eric Ed documents that “student enrollment in City Schools fell by 7% from approximately 83,600 students in 2016 to 77,800 students in 2022,” and Planning Maryland warns that “Public school enrollment in Baltimore City is projected to decline by over 5,170 students over the ten-year span.” Planning Maryland also projects the largest elementary enrollment decline in the state for Baltimore City: -3,349 students, or -9.5 percent, over its projection period.

Staffing figures have fallen less steeply than enrollment. Files Eric Ed shows the total number of teachers declined “from 5,159 in 2016 to 4,928 in 2022, which reflects only a 4.4% decline,” and the analysis says this pattern “strongly refute[s] rumors of a mass exodus of teachers from City Schools during COVID.” The report adds that lower enrollment reduced annual demand for new hires even as Maryland faces supply-side pressures in the teacher labor market.

The debate over dollars and results has intensified. Project Baltimore coverage cited by local outlets notes that “in Baltimore City, since 2017, taxpayers have given the district a 38% funding increase, but graduation rates are up just 1%,” and an unnamed school board member pressed for a shift in strategy: “I'm tired of hearing excuses. Just step up and do something. Make a change. Admit that things are, you know, not going in the right direction. Have the courage to pivot and figure out what's best for our kids, what's best for their education.”

With FY26 spending at $1.9 billion and per-pupil outlays approaching $25,000, Baltimore City faces concrete decisions about consolidating underused facilities, targeting resources to multilingual and low-income students who make up large shares of enrollment, and aligning teacher hiring with projected declines that Planning Maryland and district trend data forecast through the coming decade.