Published December 11, 2025
BY JADE GRANBERY
Over the past three years, Carmel High School has lost roughly 100 students, a decline driven by shrinking birth rates and high costs of living. Although the schools budget hasn’t been directly affected by this drop in enrollment, views from teachers and administrators differ on the causes and consequences of the dwindling student body.
CHS has been gradually losing students for several years. After hovering around the mid 800s–up to 858 in the 2022-23 school year–the numbers dipped to 799 the next year. Currently, CHS harbors 736 pupils, a total drop of 14.2% over the past three years.
CHS’ student body has shrunk by over 125 students since 2020, raising concerns for some and hopes for others. Graph by JADE GRANBERY
District leaders say that the trend they are witnessing is not surprising.
“The overall demographic picture shows a sustained drop in local birth rates…the strongest predictor of enrollment and enrollment change,” comments CUSD superintendent Sharon Ofek, citing a 2024 demographic analysis presented to the CUSD Board.
On campus, principals and teachers point fingers toward a different issue: the steep cost of living in Carmel.
“There have been predictions of declining enrollment across almost every district in Monterey County,” says CHS principal Libby Duethman. “The main cause is probably the high cost of living it takes to be here.”
With expensive groceries and housing priced at nearly 540% of the national average, based on data from Zillow, Carmel excels at attracting affluent vacation-home seekers, rather than families with children.
“A big issue our community faces is that many of our residents are simply vacationers or people who are only here part time,” adds English department chair Shelley Grahl. “Because of the increased cost of housing, it’s really hard for young families to move to Carmel.”
Financially, CUSD has been lucky to remain stable financially despite the loss in enrollment. While many schools are based on average daily attendance funding, meaning their budgeting is directly connected to the number of students present, Carmel is a basic aid district, so the budget relates not to the number in attendance, but property tax. Still, slower growth in property-tax revenue has required the district to be more cautious.
“Decling enrollment shouldn’t affect teacher jobs,” assures California Teachers Association president Bill Schrier. “Carmel is community funded, and the argument that fewer students should mean fewer teachers is nonsense.”
Schrier asserts that declining enrollment is actually a positive occurrence, lowering the student to teacher ratio.
Despite this, the English department is experiencing an opposite outcome.
“When I started here, there were eight English teachers,” says CHS English teacher Lily Owens. “Now there are only six. We’ve adjusted by not replacing retired teachers.”
Because the positions were not rehired, Owens has seen class sizes actually slightly increase in the short term, an ironic side effect of the shrinking student body.
“Every vacant position…is evaluated to determine whether the position needs to be filled, whether it should be restructured in response to program needs or eliminated altogether,” says Ofek, detailing how each decision is intentional and part of a broader, gradual strategy.
Yet declining enrollment creates challenges long before it affects funding. With fewer signups for courses, entire programs struggle to stay alive.
“Even though we may not see significant revenue challenges here at CUSD due to declining enrollment, the challenges we would see are more programmatic,” comments CUSD board member Jake Odello. “If one or two students are left in a program, would that be enough students to justifiably run that program?”
These pressures eventually make themselves seen in the master schedule at Carmel High. With fewer course signups, the school sees more “singletons,” classes that only have enough students for one class period. These singletons create scheduling difficulties due to overlap.
“When enrollment numbers fall, you need classes with healthy numbers,” says Duethman. “You can’t run a class with only three students, but you also can’t have a teacher with an empty period.”
As schedules become tight, students face fewer choices and greater difficulty fitting each preference into their schedule.
While the effects the high school faces are hard to see on the surface, the dip has already taken its toll at the elementary level. Already, Tularcitos Elementary School has seen a decrease in their student body, leading to fewer classrooms per grade.
“We used to have four classes at every grade level,” comments Tularcitos principal Ryan Peterson. “Now we only have four classes for fourth grade. Every other grade level has only three classes.”
At Tularcitos, staffing adjustments were sorted out through retirements, but other compromises were necessary, like sharing specialty teachers with other elementary campuses.
Back at the high school, changes in the student body are starting to reach every corner of the student experience, including extracurriculars.
“Fewer students means fewer kids doing sports, clubs and visual and performing arts programs,” Duethman says. “Our students here already do so much, and a decreasing population spreads them even thinner.”
With fewer students, tryout pools grow shallower, performances quieter, clubs meet with fewer chairs around the table and overachieving students involved in multiple activities have to balance even more work.
Still, many educators see many potential benefits to the trend.
“If the school continues to shrink without cutting teachers, we could eventually see smaller class sizes, and that’s incredibly good for student outcomes,” says Owens, in agreement with the union president. “Declining enrollment doesn’t necessarily need to be something to worry about. This is a real opportunity for our school to rethink our programs and innovate.”
District administrators maintain a future-focused perspective, emphasizing the district’s CUSD Forward strategic plan and the necessary call for student centered plannings.
“Our priorities center on being proactive, student-focused and aligned with the goals of the [district],” explains Ofek, reminding students and families that each decision is made with them in mind. “Our work is about positioning the district to remain strong, stable and student-centered regardless of our size.”
Hope exists alongside concerns about what a continued decline could mean.
“Declining enrollment hasn’t been a huge problem for us here yet,” concludes Duethman, “but it has the potential to be.”
