School enrollment down across Long Island
A region with a decreasing population of school-aged children has an obvious consequence — declining school enrollment. Of Long Island's 124 school districts, 91 showed enrollment declines of at least 10% in the last decade.
Between the academic years ending in 2016 and 2025, 77% of the districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties saw a drop in K-12 public school enrollment, nextLI's analysis of New York State Education Department data shows. Of those, 49 districts also recorded a proportionate decline in population of children between 5 and 17, including Kings Park, Bayport and Northport-East Northport. Some other notable drops:
- Smithtown experienced a 21% decrease in enrollment, or about 2,000 children, reflecting a 1,727 drop in its school-aged population.
- West Islip had a 693 decline in children in the last decade — a 13.6% drop — while simultaneously noting a 17.4% or 777-child reduction in school enrollment.
- Sachem school district in Lake Ronkonkoma, which is the second-largest suburban school district in the state according to its website, recorded a 14.8% decline in student enrollment from 13,562 students in 2016 to 11,553 in 2025. It also saw a 9.7% drop in school-aged population in the same period.
Overall, Suffolk County schools saw a 9.3% decline in public school enrollment in this period, a sharper drop compared with Nassau's 2.6% decline. The population of school-aged children dropped 4% in Suffolk and 0.4% in Nassau from 2016-2024.
This trend was not isolated to Long Island. Roughly 88% or 635 public school districts across New York State recorded a decrease in enrollment in the last decade, according to a December report by Cornell University’s Cornell Population Center.
Private and religious schools
Private and religious school enrollment dropped as well. More than 36,000 young Long Islanders attended the approximately 224 private and religious schools in the region in 2025, a 15% decline from 2016. Data from the state Education Department website records enrollment in private schools by the district where a student lives.
- Huntington saw a 40% drop in nonpublic school enrollment, with 424 fewer students enrolled in 2025 than the 1,050 enrolled a decade ago — the largest decline in any one district.
- Amityville students in private and religious schools declined by 35% or nearly 300 students — a drop from 824 in 2016 to 532 in 2025.
- Baldwin, similarly, saw a 37% turn away from private schools over the period, with 809 students enrolled in nonpublic schools in 2025.
Charter schools and homeschooling
While the Cornell report noted similar declines in both public and private school enrollment across the state, it found a growing interest in charter schools and homeschooling.
Long Island has only eight charter schools. However, that option might explain the plunge in public school enrollment in Hempstead — 32.3% — even though the community's population of school-aged children increased by 14.2%. The school district has three charter schools — Academy, Diamond and Evergreen — the most of any one district on the Island.
About 4,093 children are homeschooled on Long Island, according to state data, three times higher than in 2010, a trend that has gained popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Let's discuss
Long Island voted on school budgets last month, most were approved and most public school districts raised taxes to cover increasing costs caused by inflation and pension changes. Yet there are fewer students to educate. Long Islanders are getting older, families are having fewer kids, or they are leaving for less expensive areas. Others are choosing homeschool or charter schools. Why has enrollment has fallen in your area? Should the decline in public school students result in lower school taxes?
