Little Rock
95 Districts at Record Lows, 22 at Highs: Arkansas Splits in Two
Bentonville added 370 students this year. It is one of 22 Arkansas districts at all-time enrollment highs. Ninety-five districts, meanwhile, just recorded their lowest headcounts in at least two decad...
Bryant Went from 94% White to 50% While Growing
In 2005, Bryant School District enrolled 6,598 students. Ninety-four percent of them were white. The district sat in Saline County, a bedroom community south of Little Rock that the Encyclopedia of Ar...
Bentonville Passes Little Rock as Arkansas's No. 2 District
In 2004-05, Little Rock enrolled 24,424 students. Bentonville enrolled 9,210. The capital city's school district was nearly three times the size of the small northwest Arkansas district anchored by Wa...
Little Rock Fell from #1 to #3 in Seven Years
Through at least 14 consecutive years of data, Little Rock enrolled more students than any other district in Arkansas. That ended in 2019, when Springdale passed it. In 2025, Bentonville did the same....
Three Out of Four Arkansas Districts Still Below Pre-COVID Enrollment
Arkansas public schools enrolled 479,432 students in 2019-20, the most in the state's modern history. Six years later, 14,011 of those students are gone, and the recovery that briefly appeared possibl...
One in 17 Arkansas Students Now Attends a Charter-Like School
Arkansas does not track charter schools with a formal flag in its enrollment data. Identify them by name, though, and the pattern is unmistakable: 17 entities matching charter, academy, and virtual ke...
Arkansas Lost More Students This Year Than COVID Took
The COVID-19 pandemic was supposed to be the shock. In 2020-21, Arkansas public schools lost 6,428 students in a single year, the kind of enrollment hit that prompts emergency budget meetings and anxi...
After 21 Years of Growth, Hispanic Enrollment Falls for the First Time
For 20 consecutive years, one line on Arkansas's enrollment chart only moved in one direction. Hispanic student enrollment grew every single year from 2005 through 2025 (with 2014 missing from the dat...