Fall enrollment counts are in. One Tri-Cities district lost nearly 200 students
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tri-City public schools reported a 2025 headcount of 51,236 students total.
- Richland lost 190 students while Pasco and Kennewick gained students.
- Enrollment shifts remain below pre-COVID levels and impact state funding levels.
First
Tri-City public schools counted the heads of more than 51,200 students this month.
But that doesn’t mean there are more kids in K-12 classrooms than there were in September 2024.
Initial counts show that enrollment remains mostly level year-over-year in the region’s 87 elementary, secondary, online and choice schools, including two brand-new high schools that just opened in Pasco.
Last fall, Tri-City schools tallied about 100 more students than it did this year. But those older numbers may have been revised after the fact.
Overall, Tri-City schools mostly remain behind pre-COVID enrollment. In September 2019, six months before schools closed and went temporarily remote in response to the pandemic, the three districts counted nearly 51,500 students.
Here are the initial 2025-26 enrollment counts:
- Richland: 13,774 students. Down 190 pupils, or -1.4%.
- Pasco: 18,299 students. Up 84 pupils, or +0.5%.
- Kennewick: 19,163 students. Up 145 pupils, or +0.8%.
Enrollments fluctuate throughout the school year, often peaking in late fall or early winter as families settle into their schools.
Mira Gobel, Pasco’s assistant superintendent of schools and student supports, said their September headcount grew by about 84 students thanks to a small increase in high school enrollment.
“It’s encouraging to see more students walking through our doors,” Gobel said at a recent school board meeting, highlighting two years of steady growth.
Pasco High and Chiawana High combined saw 1,271 fewer students in the hallways thanks to the opening of Sageview High School and Orion High School. The two new schools are providing much-needed relief to what were two of Washington state’s largest public high schools.
Meanwhile, Richland counted 190 fewer pupils, reversing a bump of a similar size it saw in 2023.
Leaders in that district have cut programs and triggered layoffs over the last year as they struggle to balance their operations budget.
Pasco has had similar, though less severe, issues with its finances as local schools reel from rising costs, inflation and stagnant state investments in revenue.
Kennewick saw a modest enrollment bump, counting 145 more students when comparing initial September 2024 headcounts.
The first headcount of the school year takes place on the fourth day of school as required by Washington law.
This year, that landed on Friday, Sept. 5. Schools are required to report those numbers to the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI.
Subsequent counts take place on the first full school day of each month during the school year, from October to June.
Enrollment is important because it’s tied directly to the money school districts receive from the state to provide students instruction and employ teachers.
Headcount is different than student full-time equivalents, or FTEs, because it includes any student served, including those who may not be on campus for the full day. Schools receive thousands of dollars in apportionment for each FTE.
For example, a student enrolled in Running Start has a headcount of 1. But because the student takes most of their classes at their local community college instead of at their home high school, the school district counts them as just 0.2 FTE.
