For years, fall figures from the Alabama Department of Education have shown a steady increase in Hispanic public school enrollment around the state, and the numbers for the current academic year are no exception.
State numbers for the 2015-16 school year show 49,797 Hispanics enrolled in K-12. That total is 7 percent of the overall student enrollment of 730,563, and it represents a jump of 11 percent over last year’s Hispanic number.
The total also is more than double the number of Hispanics enrolled in Alabama public schools in 2005-06. The statewide enrollment that year was 738,446, and the Hispanic share of that number was 20,386, or just under 3 percent.
The climb in Hispanic numbers is occurring as white and black enrollment is moving in the other direction.
Figures from the education department’s public data reports show 407,245 whites in K-12, or about 56 percent of the overall total for 2015-16. The same reports show the number of blacks at 241,922, or 33 percent of the overall total. Ten years ago, the number of white public school students was listed at 438,194, or 59 percent of the overall enrollment. The black student total was 264,945, or 36 percent.
The growth in Hispanic student numbers is evident both locally and in other school systems around the state, particularly in parts of north Alabama that have had a significant Hispanic population for years.
In the majority-black Birmingham public schools, Hispanic students still make up 5 percent of the overall enrollment, but state figures show their numbers have increased 10 percent, from 1,201 last year to 1,321 this year. While the Birmingham system’s number of black students is lower this year than last, the growth in Hispanic students has helped raise the overall enrollment from 23,963 to 24,010.
In the suburban Hoover system, state fall enrollment figures showed the number of Hispanic pupils at 853 in 2014-15, or 6 percent of the overall enrollment of 13,904. This year, state reports list the number of Hispanics at 1,000, or 7 percent of the systemwide enrollment of 13,845.
Over the same period, Jefferson County schools have seen a jump of nearly 12 percent in their Hispanic student ranks, from 2,592 to 2899, state figures show, and Hispanic pupils now amount to 8 percent of the system’s overall enrollment.
Meanwhile, Hispanic student numbers are continuing to climb in such north Alabama counties as DeKalb and Marshall. They appear to be edging toward a majority in the northwest Alabama city of Russellville, where they now make up 44 percent of the students in the city public school system.
Hispanic pupils made up 40 percent of Russellville’s fall enrollment last year, when they tallied 1,041 out of the city’s K-12 total of 2,597. This fall, their K-12 numbers have jumped by 15 percent, to 1,199 out of an overall enrollment of 2,703.
According to census figures for 2014, persons identifying themselves as Hispanics or Latinos amounted to 4 percent of Alabama’s 4.8 million residents. Nationwide, Hispanics or Latinos made up 17 percent of the country’s more than 308 million residents.