Today, New Orleans has a quarter fewer people than it did before Hurricane Katrina and the population has a smaller proportion of children. The number of babies born in Orleans Parish has been steadily declining since that time.

The decrease in birth rate means there are fewer students here to enroll in our city’s kindergarten classrooms and enter our public schools. Year by year, as these smaller classes move through grade levels, our public school enrollment will decrease further.

Even without future enrollment declines, our system’s current under-enrollment creates challenges for our schools. Because our schools are funded on a “per pupil” basis – a set amount of dollars for each student the school enrolls – open spots mean schools will need to make tough decisions about limited resources across classrooms while managing fixed costs. This is a difficult problem, and there are many decisions NOLA-PS and charter schools must make to address it. At NSNO, we will continue to support the district and our schools in facing this challenge.

Resources

NSNO is committed to providing annual updates, analysis, and reflections based on recent data, as well as updating source files when available. The files below contain NSNO’s annual School Sustainability Analysis reports, background data used to inform the analyses, and relevant NSNO blog posts.

NSNO’s School Sustainability Analysis

• NSNO School Sustainability Analysis: 2025-26; 2024-25; 2023-24; 2022-23; 2021-22
• NSNO Landscape Analysis Webinars: 2025-26; 2023-24; 2022-23