Over the last five years, Oakland Unified School District has invested millions of dollars in stabilizing enrollment, by allocating funds to hire more enrollment staff, help schools market themselves, and carry out social media and advertising campaigns encouraging parents to enroll their children in OUSD.
The district is up against strong headwinds: public school enrollment is down across California, stricter immigration policies mean the newcomer student population — typically robust in OUSD — has cratered, and declining birth rates have all but cemented that the trend will continue.
Despite those factors, OUSD enrollment ticked up this year…