Enrollment Spurt Pushes School Total to 610,149

Confirming predictions of a major growth spurt, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said 15,347 new students enrolled this fall, bringing the total enrollment to 610,149.

Henry Jones, the district’s budget services administrator, said the new figures suggest that “the grace period of slow enrollment has ended, and that we can expect significant growth throughout the district in the immediate future.”

Jones also said that the big enrollment jump meant more problems for the district in finding adequate classroom space. On Monday, the Board of Education is scheduled to begin discussing solutions to the overcrowding problem at a special meeting.

Enrollment districtwide had dropped during the previous two years. But this year it grew in all areas of the Los Angeles school district, the nation’s second largest. New York City has the largest district.

Officials said the greatest growth occurred in schools on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley, in part because of increased busing from overcrowded downtown and southeast region schools.