Across Colorado, student enrollment remains lower than would normally be expected, a trend that began with a dramatic public school enrollment drop in 2020, when the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic disrupted normal life – especially education.

Newly released statewide enrollment data suggests that some of the tens of thousands of missing students returned, but in the youngest grades, thousands are still missing from classrooms.

Colorado Department of Education statistics distributed Wednesday for the current school year show more than 35,000 students disappeared from public school enrollment. The biggest drops were in the youngest grades.

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Figures suggest that about half of the missing students haven’t returned, with at least 10,000 younger students still missing from rosters, and the biggest bounce-back in older grades.

It’s still hard to figure out where the students that were “lost” went, said Academy School District 20 Chief Financial Officer Becky Allan. Parents don’t always notify districts that they’ve decided to homeschool their children or are moving, she said, and neither preschool nor kindergarten are not required for Colorado students.

“If we went back 12 months, we were fearful of what the future was going to hold – we didn’t know if we’d ever find those students again, if they’d completely disappeared and we’d lose them forever,” said D-20 spokeswoman Allison Cortez. “To see our numbers rebound gives us a great sense of hope.”

Colorado’s largest public school districts are bucking the statewide trend that shows slight enrollment rebounds from last academic year’s striking enrollment losses.

A total of 886,517 preschool through 12th grade students were enrolled statewide in October, an increase of 3,318 students, or 0.4%, over 2020, according to the annual October headcount.

Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest, lost another 172 students for enrollment of 88,889 this academic year, data show. Last year, enrollment in Denver Public Schools was down by 3,051 students, from 2019-20’s record high of 92,112 students.

However, over the past 10 years, Denver County 1 has grown by nearly 10%, or about 8,000 more students than in 2011.

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Enrollment in Jefferson County R-1, the state’s second biggest district, decreased this year by 1,615 students for a total of 78,473 enrolled. In 2020-21, enrollment fell by 3,960 students over 2019-20. District enrollment has been declining since 2016.

Douglas County RE-1, the state’s third largest, saw an increase of 897 students this year, after losing 4,326 students last year, compared with 2019’s prepandemic number.

This year’s total enrollment remains well below 2019’s record high of 913,223 students statewide, officials said.

Preschool students constituted the largest grade increase in 2021-22, adding 4,478 more students than in 2020-21. Kindergarten also had 3,868 more students this year.

Those two grades had the biggest declines last year, losing 8,009 preschoolers and 5,800 fewer kindergartners.

Half of the 14 grades counted show decreases this academic year, with middle schools taking the biggest hit. Sixth grade reflected the largest drops statewide, with 2,399 fewer students, and seventh grade had 1,937 fewer students compared with 2020.

Hispanic students posted the largest gain among ethnicities and races, with 4,357 more students totaling 306,215.

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As was the case last school year, white students continued to struggle, showing the largest decline of 3,106 fewer students statewide, for a total of 460,186.

One-third fewer homeschool students were counted in 2021 over the fall of 2020 – 10,502 in 2021 compared to 15,773 in 2020 – a 33.4% decline. However, this year’ s homeschool population is still higher than the 2019 total of 7,880.

 Colorado’s largest school districts 2021-22

 Source: Colorado Department of Education