Arkansas K-12 Enrollment
Arkansas Public School Enrollment 2013-2026
Thirteen years of enrollment for every Arkansas public school district and charter system: before, during, and after the state's biggest education policy shift.
Arkansas's LEARNS Act created Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) in 2023, the state's education savings account program. Assessing what has happened to public school enrollment since requires a credible baseline, a defensible answer to "compared to what." Enrollment was already shifting before COVID, and the pandemic disrupted it further still.
This tool tracks fall-by-fall enrollment for all 235 current-boundary school districts and all 22 public charter school systems, drawn from the state's own Student Information System (SIS). The data is organized into three eras: the baseline (2013–14 through 2019–20), the COVID shock (2020–21 and 2021–22), and the EFA era (2022–23 onward).
Statewide totals are verified against Arkansas's officially published figures for all thirteen years, to the student. Where a district's numbers carry a caveat (a boundary change, a thin pre-EFA baseline), it is disclosed on the row itself, not buried in a footnote. Full data sources, era definitions, and every known limitation are documented in the methodology.
The six views
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Statewide Trend
The whole state on one chart: total, district-only, and charter-only enrollment by year, with the three eras shaded. Best for the big picture and the topline numbers.
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Map
Every district colored by its EFA-era enrollment change. Best for seeing the geographic pattern at a glance; click any district to open its detail page.
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District Rankings
All 235 districts ranked by EFA-era change, searchable, filterable to declining/stable/growing. Best for finding which specific districts changed the most, or looking up one by name.
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District Detail
One district's full enrollment history, its trajectory classification, era-by-era rates, and any caveats that apply. Search for any district by name to go straight to its page. Every district's page also has its own shareable link.
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School Districts
Every metric for every district in one sortable table, nothing filtered out. Best for researchers who want the numbers themselves.
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Charter Schools
A companion table for Arkansas's 22 public charter school systems: enrollment, year-over-year changes within the EFA era, and growth trajectories. Deliberately simpler than the district views. Most charters are too new for baseline-era comparisons to mean anything.
Where to start
- Looking up a district you represent or cover? Type its name into the district rankings search box, then click through to its detail page. That page's link is shareable and names the district in the browser tab.
- Working on a story? The district rankings open sorted to the steepest EFA-era declines; the map shows whether the pattern is regional or scattered; the statewide trend gives the verified topline, including how district and charter enrollment have moved in opposite directions: district enrollment down 6% and charter enrollment more than tripled since 2013, with the same pattern continuing through the EFA era alone (district down 4%, charter up 25%, 2022–23 through 2025–26).
- Doing your own analysis? Start with the school districts table for every district-level metric, and the methodology for source data, era definitions, verification results, and the full list of known caveats, including the 7 districts whose current boundary postdates 2013.
What this tool can't tell you
Enrollment counts show what changed, not why. This tool doesn't track where departing students went (EFA participation, private schools, homeschooling, or moves out of state), doesn't include private school or EFA program data, and doesn't go below the district level. Claims about causes need evidence beyond these counts.