Oct. 2026 enrollment report: forecast vs. real

Provisional

This page comes from the Oct. 29, 2026 board workshop video and packet. The minutes are not posted yet. We will recheck when they are.

Key facts

• This year (2026-27): 41,116 students in PASA’s count, about 725 fewer than forecast. The district’s own Sept. 15 count was 41,143.¹²
• Last year (2025-26): 41,953, about 710 fewer than forecast¹
• Peak: 42,608 in 2024-25³
• New forecast for 2036-37: about 40,120 students⁴
• Elementary seats vs. students in 2036-37: 25,157 seats, 19,172 students⁴

In short

For two years in a row, about 700 fewer students came than the forecast said.¹ The district’s demographer now expects a slow dip to about 40,120 students by 2036-37.⁴ That is about 1,000 fewer than today.⁵ Elementary grades grow in the forecast. High school shrinks.⁴

Why it matters to your tax bill: the forecast decides where schools get built and how much money the state sends.

Related: enrollment forecasts · forecast record · demographer · school capacity

Layer 1: The idea

Each fall the district’s outside demographer, Population and Survey Analysts (PASA), estimates how many students will come. The board uses that estimate to plan schools and budgets. A high estimate can mean building seats no one fills.

Layer 2: What the report said

School year	Forecast	Actual	Short by
2025-26	42,663	41,953	about 710
2026-27	41,841	41,116	about 725

These are PASA’s numbers.¹ The 2026-27 forecast, 41,841, is PASA’s middle case from a year earlier. It is also the number the board’s 2026-27 budget used.⁶ For 2025-26, the budget used PASA’s lower case (42,448), so the gap there looks smaller on enrollment forecasts. PASA’s actual count is 41,116. The district’s own September count for 2026-27 was 41,143, which is why other pages say 698 fewer.⁷ So enrollment has fallen two years in a row from its 2024-25 peak.³ (Some residents said three years. The record shows two.)

The ten-year outlook:⁴

• Most likely: about 40,120 in 2036-37, with a low of 39,496 in 2033-34.
• Range: 34,393 (slow growth) to 42,301 (fast growth).
• Elementary (pre-K to 5th): up from 16,923 to 19,172.
• High school: down from 13,891 to 12,217.

Layer 3: Why fewer came

PASA gave these reasons:⁸

• Texas public schools lost about 87,500 students statewide this year.
• The share of local students who attend the district fell from 89% to 87%. The charter share rose from 6.2% to 7.8%.⁸
• About 800 fewer new homes filled this year than expected.
• The forecast assumes state school vouchers keep going at about today’s level. PASA gave two different counts of voucher students who left public schools: about 200 out loud, about 270 in the packet.⁹

What it means for schools

The district has 25,157 elementary seats in the report’s count. The forecast has 19,172 elementary students in 2036-37. That is about 6,000 more seats than students.¹⁰ But it is not even. Some schools are projected far over capacity:¹¹

• Mason Elementary: 589 students in 860 seats today (68%). Projected 942 (110%) by 2036-37.¹¹
• Tarvin: 187%. Bagdad: 137% (with its bilingual program). Rouse: over 120% within five years.¹¹

How this bears on the planned new schools and the Mason move is on a separate page that is not out yet.

The other side

• The whole state lost students. The district’s miss is not only a local planning problem.¹
• Elementary grades still grow in the most-likely case.⁴
• Forecasts have run high since 2023-24, so this is not a one-year miss.¹²

What you can do or watch next

• Watch for the next official count and forecast updates on board agendas.

Questions to ask

• When will the board post the approved minutes for this meeting?
• How does the district count seats at schools not yet built?

Changes to this page

• Nov. 2, 2026: We now call the forecast an estimate, not a guess, and removed a hedged line.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Added questions to ask.
• Nov. 2, 2026: We checked every figure against its source. We pointed the voucher note to the right moments in the video.

What we still don’t know

• Whether the minutes will match the video.
• How the report counts seats at schools not yet built.
• Neighborhood-level data on where students go to charters. A trustee asked for it.⁸

Go deeper

• Enrollment forecasts · Forecast record · The demographer · School capacity · Charters

Footnotes

1. PASA 2026 report, board packet Oct. 29, 2026, p.93 (packet); video 3:32:06. Statewide drop: video 3:01:47. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Board packet, Oct. 15, 2026, page 151: 41,143 actual on 9/15/26. Packet page 151. PASA’s count was taken on a different date. ↩

3. TEA fall count 2024-25: 42,608. ↩ ↩²

4. PASA 2026 report, packet p.95 and p.101 (packet); video 3:34:28. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

5. Our math: 41,116 − 40,120 = 996. ↩

6. Leander ISD, 2026-27 budget assumptions letter, Jan. 22, 2026: “Student enrollment of 41,841; projected growth model”; 2026-27 budget report: “Projected Student Enrollment: 41,841.” ↩

7. District count, Sept. 2026. ↩

8. PASA 2026 report, board packet Oct. 29, 2026, p.82 (88.8% to 86.8%; charters 6.2% to 7.8%), p.90 (about 26,203 new homes filled) and p.93 (nearly 800 fewer homes) (packet); also video 3:18:19. ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. About 200: video 3:14:48. About 270: packet p.93. The voucher assumption: video 3:35:30. ↩

10. Our math: 25,157 − 19,172 = 5,985. ↩

11. Packet p.101 (packet); video 3:41:28, 3:44:12. ↩ ↩² ↩³

12. Budget forecasts 2023-24 to 2026-27 all came in high. ↩