(File Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye)
KENOSHA, Wis. — Kenosha Unified School District enrollment fell by 770 students this school year, dropping from 17,799 students in September 2025 to 17,029 students in the district’s official Sept. 18, 2026 Third Friday count. The decline represents a loss of about 4.3% of KUSD’s student population in a single year.
The final number also came in significantly below what KUSD had anticipated. District officials projected enrollment of 17,417 students in February, meaning the actual count was 442 students below that estimate.
KUSD attributed the decline primarily to a long-term decrease in births within the district, more students leaving for non-KUSD educational programs and lower participation in early-grade offerings. District officials said births within KUSD’s boundaries have averaged about 500 fewer per year than the 2008 peak of 1,953 births.
Nearly Every School Category Lost Students
Elementary schools collectively lost 241 students, falling from 7,022 to 6,781. Middle schools lost another 177 students, dropping from 3,228 to 3,051, while high schools declined by 208 students, from 5,370 to 5,162. KUSD’s choice schools fell by 144 students, from 2,179 to 2,035.
Indian Trail High School & Academy saw the largest individual school decline, losing 146 students and falling from 1,837 students last year to 1,691 this year. LakeView K-8 Academy lost 77 students, Bullen Middle School lost 72 and Mahone Middle School lost 59. Roosevelt Elementary dropped by 53 students and Grewenow Elementary lost 50. Bradford High School declined by 46 students.
Only a handful of schools posted increases. Forest Park Elementary gained 15 students, Grant Elementary gained 14, Tremper High School gained eight and Bose Elementary gained two.
Sixth Grade Takes Biggest Hit
The largest grade-level decrease occurred in sixth grade, which fell by 193 students, from 1,338 last year to 1,145 this year. Third grade dropped by 127 students and 11th grade declined by 108. Kindergarten fell by 82 students.
Seventh grade was the notable exception, increasing by 52 students from 1,275 to 1,327. Fourth-grade enrollment remained unchanged at 1,232 students.
The district’s Sept. 18 count shows Indian Trail remains KUSD’s largest school with 1,691 students, followed by Bradford High School with 1,408 and Tremper High School with 1,381. Mahone is the largest middle school at 919 students.
Wisconsin school districts conduct the Third Friday enrollment count each September. The state uses those figures in determining school district revenue limits, which affect the amount districts may receive through general state aid and local property tax levies.
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28 Responses
It has been clear with overall decline in birthrates year over year for more than a decade now that they need more school closures. A high school should have already been closed, two is sufficient now and decline numbers show two will support for the extended future. Don’t ask for more money, make the necessary management decisions.
What are those numbers ? And Why ?
Westosha Central High School in Paddock Lake has approximately 300 High School kids open enrolling into its school. A majority from Kenosha.
Even at that Westosha’s total is right around 1,300. with capacity for a few hundred more.
To start to think about closing any one of the Kenosha High Schools you can’t just assume that it will save a ton of money. It won’t.
Even without anyone in a building the building still needs to be maintained. That includes heating.
No small expense there. Albeit the cold air won’t be coming in or heat escaping as much with the doors not being used daily.
But then the air stagnates. Mold becomes a concern. That’s not good.
Then the extra busing cost. Not a lot but not nothing. And sure you’ll fill up some smaller class sizes but you will still need most of the teachers.
It is not a complete savings by far.
Some savings yes but I believe that keeping them open, maintained and functioning is the best because if and when the decline gets far enough to clearly shift to one less high school, maybe there will be enough demand for a private high school that can just buy it outright from KUSD.
With that KUSD saves in demolition cost and might actually get a few million.
And if in 5 more years things get so bad in Illinois and maybe better in Wisconsin we will see an influx of Illinoians moving up here and our enrollments will increase despite the birth rates going down.
Closing a school isn’t as easy or smart as you think.
Two of the schools that they didn’t close, Bullen and Harborside already had mold issues!! They need to shut down Harborside and Reuther!! That building is as old as shit!!
KUSD absolutely does not want to abandon or sell any of their buildings, because they could possibly be used by a private or charter school. They would rather pay to maintain an empty building than lose the $$ from the kids who move to a competing school. Notice why the KUSD buildings that were “closed” all were done so ONLY after an agreement was made to DEMOLISH them! Milwaukee does the same thing.
If you move your child from KUSD to a private, charter, or open-enroll in another district, parents have to provide transportation. People don’t run TO something – they run FROM something.
Why would they need more money for 700 less students???
Is anyone really shocked?
I believe , we should close a few of the choose high schools. They have served KUSD students very well over the years but if close the choose high schools , and relocate the students each high school would be a full capacity. And then we take some of the choose school
Staff and put them in the comprehensive high schools. Each of the High Schools would have population 1800-2000 students. And then that cuts the cost of running other buildings and some staff. And then utilizes the comprehensive schools to the full capacity.
Maybe stop hiring scumbags that wanna be called educators but don’t do what they signed up for in the first place….
People are waking up to the KUSD pe(rv)do and fraud show. Now take out a few dozen useless admin jobs, replace with AI, put the teachers on performance salaries, and the ‘children’ might have a chance.
Can we put the parents on some kind of penalty system for their kids performance as well? Really hard to hold a teacher accountable when the parents are absolute trash and won’t hold their kids accountable.
Live this
Homeschool
But it’s for the children!! I call BS!!!! Start by getting rid of worthless bosses who give themself’s large raises.
Its not so much birthrates like you fools think. Its WHAT they teach and HOW they teach. Child groomers in the schools as custodians, teachers, deans etc. People are pulling their kids from these pedophile freaks and they’re woke ideology and either going private school or homeschooling like me and my wife decided to and our sons grades and overall mental are so much better. Wake up!
EXACTLY Gearhead96!
Huh that tells me they could dismiss 20 teachers and a few administrators to boot. Hmm
Not surprised that Indian Trail had a lower student rate this year. After the last school year and all the perverts and shenanigans going on at that school! So glad my granddaughter doesn’t attend that school anymore. Wake up KUSD, it’s only going to get worse next school year!
Glad to hear your granddaughter doesn’t attend that school either! Perverts are everywhere though. If the parents can’t Homeschool, hopefully they become very involved and aware of everything going on in your granddaughter’s school that she is attending now.
With all the BS propaganda that gets pushed on students, perhaps more parents are choosing to homeschool.
There is zero propaganda going on. No evidence of Indoctrination going on. None.
LMAO, open your eyes! 🤦♀️
This MUST be is a sarcastic comment! You couldn’t possibly REALLY believe this isn’t happening, right? Riiight?? Oh wait…then there was 2020!🤦♀️
that is exactly is. The whole birthrate thing is a lie
Don’t worry, with Tony Evers 400 year automatic raises per student, that Incompetent Crowley vows to continue, your school property taxes will only go up about $5,000 over the next 10 years.
The governor doesn’t levy property taxes.
It is NOT a decrease in birthrate, it is parents who are sick and tired of Weiss’s woke school system who are pulling their kids out of public school. They need to re-evaluate the way they are influencing and “teaching” your children before they ask for another dime from taxpayers! Weiss and the rest of KUSD needs to be shut down
Kevin could you print these same charts with school capacity? If a school is less than 65% full it should be closed-and all staff fired. For instance close Reuther (they are WAY below capacity) and those students go to Indian Trail, Bradford, Tremper. All staff are fired and rehired, if needed, at those schools. Losing 770 students @ $16000 each (local, state, federal) is 12 million of revenue so you need to lose 120 employees at $100,000 salary/benefit-not hard to do.
ain’t gonna beat ’em at they’re game.