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       Enrollment in Virginia’s public schools continues to lag pre-pandemic levels, according to new data from the state’s education department.

       Districts counted 1,261,962 students enrolled in Virginia’s public schools. The data reflects the total number of full-time and part-time students enrolled in prekindergarten through 12th grade. Enrollment for the 2023-2024 school year is down slightly from the 1,263,342 the Virginia Education Department reported last school year, and down about 3 percent from the total reported in fall 2019 — just before the pandemic.

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       School systems around the country suffered major dips in public school enrollment after pandemic closures, and many school districts are still trying to recover enrollment and fight chronic absenteeism to get students into classrooms. A report from the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics released this year showed enrollment was down 3 percent in 2021, with 49.4 million students compared with 50.8 million before the pandemic, in 2019.

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       In Virginia, the state lost more than 45,000 students between 2019 and 2020. This year’s data indicates that the state has made up about 20 percent of those losses.

       In Northern Virginia, school districts were split. Fairfax County Public Schools, the state’s largest school system, reported 180,970 students, up about 850 from last year, but still about 4 percent below the 188,930 it reported in 2019.

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       In nearby Loudoun County, the school district reported 82,028 students, about the same as last year and about 2 percent fewer than what was reported in 2019. In Arlington County, enrollment remained about the same compared with last year, with a total enrollment of 27,536. That’s about 600, or about 2 percent, fewer than 2019’s number.

       Figures from Alexandria City Public Schools show rebound and growth. It has about 16,439 students enrolled, more than the 16,307 the district recorded in 2019 — the highest enrollment on record since 1971. Marya Runkle, Alexandria schools’ director of education and business applications, said in an email that the district is scheduled to present enrollment data to the school board Nov. 30.

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       “As we continue with the 2023-24 school year, we are excited about serving more than 16,000 students and about the fact that our current enrollment exceeds pre-pandemic enrollment and is the largest enrollment ACPS has had since 1971,” Runkle said.

       Similarly, in D.C., preliminary counts totaled more than 98,000 students enrolled in D.C. traditional public and charter schools, which outpaced pre-pandemic totals. Officials said it was the city’s “highest ever” enrollment since the education superintendent started compiling data in 2007.

       Maryland’s largest school districts, as with Virginia, continue to lag. Montgomery County Public Schools counted 160,770 students on Sept. 30, about 4,500 fewer students than enrollment in fall 2019. And Prince George’s County Public Schools reported 131,390 students, about 4,600 fewer than the 2019 number.

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