Full time equivalent (FTE) enrollment at Oconee County Schools dropped by 192 from October of 2024 to October of 2025, based on the official enrollment figures Oconee County Schools filed with the Georgia Department of Education.
From October of 2023 to October of 2024, FTEs had dropped by 61.
The downturn in enrollment at Oconee County Schools reflects both state and national trends in public school enrollments, but the decline at Oconee County Schools was greater in raw numbers than at any of the other Northeast Georgia Regional Service Agency (RESA) school systems.
In percentage terms, the decline in FTEs at Oconee County Schools is greater than across the state.
The October figures show a drop of 128 FTEs at the primary through elementary level, 21 at the middle school level, and 43 at the high school levels.
Only four of the system’s 12 schools did not have a drop in enrollment, and each of the 12 schools has excess capacity, with the Dove Creek Middle School having excess capacity of 493 students and Malcom Bridge Middle School having an excess capacity of 471 students.
The decline in enrollment would have been just slightly greater–195 FTEs–had not the number of students from outside Oconee County enrolled at Oconee County Schools increased from 91 last year to 94.
The number of residential building permits in the county has been relatively stable in recent years, but the number of electronically filed Declaration of Intent To Home School has increased as has the number of students resident in Oconee County attending private schools.
Long-Term Enrollment Growth And Decline
The decline of FTEs of 192 is smaller that the drop of 259 students that then Interim Superintendent Debra Harden reported to the Parent Advisory Committee and Student Advisory Committee in September based on the first-day-of-school student counts.
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Going back to 1994, the earliest year for which data are available from the Georgia Department of Education, enrollment at Oconee County Schools had grown, with only some leveling off–but no decline--from 2007 to 2011.
The enrollment at Oconee County Schools followed the national pattern until 2019, when nationally enrollment dropped in the COVID pandemic but not in Oconee County.
In Oconee County, only PK-5 enrollments show that COVID decline from 2019 to 2020, and, with that exception the pattern of enrollments at Oconee County Schools is the same across elementary, middle, and high school enrollments.
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PK-5 enrollment recovered from the COVID decline and grew by 101 students from 2019 to 2021.
In the last year, enrollments declined at all three levels, resulting in the drop of 128 students at the PK-5 grades, 21 students at the middle school level, and 43 students at the high school level.
Overall enrollments had declined from October of 2023 to October of 2024, but they had increased at the middle school level those years.
Regional Comparisons
The drop in FTEs of 192 in Oconee County from October of 2024 to October of 2025 is the largest among the 13 school systems that make up the Northeast Georgia RESA, which includes the school systems in Barrow, Clarke, Jackson, Elbert, Greene, Madison, Morgan, Oglethorpe, and Walton counties.
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Barrow County Schools reported a decline of 171 FTEs, Walton County Schools reported a drop of 162, and Clarke County of 160.
Jackson County reported a gain of 182 FTEs, Commerce City schools reported an increase of 32 students, and Greene County Schools reported a gain of 10 students.
All other systems, including the third system in Jackson County, Jefferson City Schools, reported decreased enrollments in October of 2025 from October of 2024.
The gain of 182 students at Jackson County Schools this year over last compares with a gain of 636 students from 2023 to 2024.
And Jefferson City Schools gained 125 students from 2023 to 2024, compared with the loss of nine students this year, suggesting a slowdown in growth in Jackson County school systems growth as well.
In percentage gain, both Jackson County Schools and Commerce City Schools had the highest growth rate, and Morgan County, followed by Elbert County, had the largest declines.
The decline in Oconee County was 2.3 percent, which is greater than the drop of 1.7 percent for the state as a whole.
The October enrollment count and another in March are mandated by state law.
The Georgia Department of Education, based on data provided by Oconee County Schools, computes weighted FTE counts that are used for funding the states Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula.
For October of 2025, the weighted FTE figure was 8,286, down from 8,398 for March of this year and from 8,486 in October of 2024, or a decline of 200 FTEs from a year ago.
QBE funding follows the student, according to Jennifer Whitaker, Chief Academic Officer for Oconee County School, so Oconee County Schools gets state funding for all students enrolled regardless of place of residence.
Enrollments By School
Of the 12 schools in the Oconee County system, only Dove Creek Elementary School (increase of 1), Oconee County Elementary School (increase of 9), Oconee County Middle School (increase of 19), and North Oconee High School (increase of 38) reported enrollment gains on Oct. 7 of this year compared with Oct. 1 of last year.
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Oconee County Primary School (grades K, 1, and 2) had 45 fewer students than a year earlier, High Shoals Elementary had 33 fewer students, and Rocky Branch Elementary School had 22 fewer students.
The new Dove Creek Middle School had 21 fewer students in October of 2025 than in October of 2024, while Malcom Bridge Middle School had 19 fewer students.
Oconee County High School lost the most students of any school in the system, reporting 81 fewer students in October of 2025 than in October of 2024.
Oconee County Schools undertook a massive construction program after passage of the current Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) in March of 2021 that added a middle school and expanded the number of classrooms at three of the system’s elementary schools.
The result is that the system now has unused capacity for 1,290 elementary school students, 1,005 middle school students, and 298 high school students.
The new Dove Creek Middle School and Malcom Bridge Elementary School are operating at just above half capacity.
Reflecting these school capacity figures, Kevin Yancey, Director of Student Services for Oconee County Schools, told the Board of Education at its meeting on Nov. 10 that every school in the system is available for open enrollment.
Parents are free to apply to move their children from one school to another, provided the parent provides the needed transportation.
Possible Links To Enrollment
Oconee County saw a massive growth in number of residential building permits issued from the end of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 through 2016, but the number of issued permits dropped after that–from 2016 to 2019--and has been relatively stable over the last four years.
The Board of Education began the construction of the new middle school and added classrooms to three of its elementary schools after five years of permit declines.
Guy Herring, Director of Oconee County Planning and Code Enforcement, said on Friday (Nov. 14), that the county has issued 190 residential building permits this year with two months remaining, suggesting that the number of permits will be at or near the number issued last year and over the last five years.
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In October of 2023, that figure was 910 students. That number increased by 85 students to 995 in October of 2024 and by 88 students to 1,083 on Oct. 7 of this year.
The bulk of those students–976–attend Athens Academy, Prince Avenue Christian School, and Westminster Christian Academy, all located in Oconee County.
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State enrollment figures for those schools has not been released at this date.
The best–but incomplete–indicator that the state has of home schooling comes from Declarations of Intent to Home School submitted electronically. Other options for initiating home school exist but are not counted by the state.
In Oconee County, the number of electronic statements increased, reflecting the addition of 26 students in the county doing home schooling this academic year from a year earlier.
That increase was much higher in Walton County (218), in Jackson County (160), and in Madison County (153).
The state as a whole saw a growth of 19.9 percent in the number of students represented by the electronic statements of intent to home school this year over last.
Possible Explanations Of Enrollment Declines
Interim Superintendent Harden said in September that Oconee County Schools was attempting to understand the drop in enrollments when she released the counts at first-day-of-school counts.
So far, there has been no public discussion of those counts or of the October enrollment data.
The Reason Foundation attributes the national trends to declining birth rates, domestic migration, and more families choosing private schools and homeschooling.
The Foundation says it “advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles” and uses “journalism and public policy research to influence the frameworks and actions of policymakers, journalists, and opinion leaders.”
Drawing on data from the National Center for Education Statistics, a unit of the U.S. Department of Education, the Foundation predicts that “public school enrollment will decline to 46.9 million students by the 2032 fiscal year, representing a 5.3 percent decrease from 2024.”
“As public schools become increasingly underutilized and school districts face mounting cost pressures, state and local policymakers must adjust to current enrollment and the forecasts of fewer students in the decade ahead,” the report states.
The work of NCES has been very negatively affected by the cuts in funding to the Department of Education, and it has delayed gathering of and releasing data on public school enrollments and on other topics.
In its current projection of public school enrollments, it identifies Georgia as one of 20 states where enrollments are expected to be 5 percent or more lower in 2030 than in 2020.
Enrollments are expected to be higher for Asian students, Hispanic students, and students of two or more races, and lower for American Indians/Alaska Native, Black, Pacific Islander, and White students.
I have used NCES data extensively in my academic career. One of my research programs focused on the interplay between university journalism and communication education and its labor markets. I used NCES data extensively.
This research is summarized in a book I wrote with my colleague Tudor Vlad at the end of my academic career called The Changing Education for Journalism and the Communication Occupations: The Impact Of Labor Markets.
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