CPS Enrollment Collapse: 13 Chicago High Schools Now 80 Percent Empty, One Operating at 2 Percent Capacity
Chicago Public Schools enrollment declined to crisis levels as 13 high schools now sit at least 80 percent empty, including Douglass High School on the far west side, which enrolled just 27 students last year for a utilization rate of only 2 percent. The district has lost more than 77,000 students since 2010, a 19 percent drop, with the decline continuing at roughly 10,000 students per year. Thirty-five percent of all CPS schools are now less than half full.
A WGN Investigates review of district data exposed the scale of underutilization across the system. Most Chicago high schools see hundreds of students flooding the exits at day’s end. At Douglass, the departure is a trickle. One student described a class size of seven. A parent said the limited enrollment allows children to receive individualized attention that larger schools often fail to provide. Despite those advantages for the few students present, the building lacks electives, drama programs, and athletics that make school engaging for teenagers.
13 Chicago high schools are 80% empty—including one operating at just 2% capacity with only 27 students.
CPS has lost over 77,000 students since 2010.
35% of all district schools are now less than half full.
Spending at the near-empty Douglass High has soared to $55,000 per… pic.twitter.com/x9AKDWUv7G
— Matt Robinson (@mattrobinson) September 12, 2026
Spending at Douglass reached $55,000 per student, more than double the district average. The high cost persists even though the small student body limits course offerings and extracurricular options. Former local school council members in the Austin neighborhood voiced frustration that the absence of a strong neighborhood high school signals community weakness and drives families to seek education elsewhere. One former council member said the situation shows Austin is losing the battle because the kids are not there. Another said when you do not have a strong high school, that shows the community is weak.
Wanda Hopkins, whose children attended selective enrollment schools rather than their local option, pointed out the mismatch between staffing levels and results. She said with all those teachers for 37 students, every last one of those children should have gone to Harvard. Hal Woods of Kids First Chicago noted that declining enrollment reflects broader demographic trends of fewer children being born, a pattern affecting districts statewide and nationally. He emphasized that the core problem is the lack of open discussion about how to right-size the system rather than the enrollment numbers themselves.
Three Chicago public high schools now have fewer than 100 students. Thirteen are at least 80 percent empty. The slow leak of students accelerated after the pandemic, but the trend began years earlier. Families are having fewer children. Of those with school-age children in Chicago, 70 percent send their kids to public school, a figure that decreased only slightly since the pandemic. The reality is fewer kids to serve. Woods said the crisis is not the current enrollment. The crisis is that no one is having the conversation about this.
A moratorium on school closures, enacted after the 2013 shutdown of 50 buildings under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, remains in effect and has kept underused facilities open. Mayor Brandon Johnson and teachers union allies have described schools as essential community anchors that should not be closed, arguing that past closures disrupted neighborhoods without delivering savings. Johnson said school closure is a nonstarter. It saved nothing and completely disrupted and gutted communities that need government to fight for them. Chicago Public Schools declined to participate in the WGN Investigates report.
Experts indicate the district will continue facing deficits, potential layoffs, and operational uncertainty until enrollment trends are confronted directly. That conversation is unlikely to advance until after next year’s mayoral election and the selection of a new school board. The combination of sustained population loss, rigid resistance to consolidation, and ballooning costs at nearly vacant buildings underscores the structural challenges facing the system. Douglas High School remains clean and well-maintained. It just needs more students. The district needs a conversation about what happens when the students do not return.
The enrollment collapse exposes a deeper failure. Chicago taxpayers are funding buildings that serve a fraction of their intended capacity. Parents in underserved neighborhoods are watching their local schools hollow out while district leadership insists that closing them would harm the community. The result is a system that cannot afford its own infrastructure, cannot offer competitive programming, and cannot admit the scope of the problem. Until someone in power is willing to say the system is too large for the population it serves, the deficits will grow, the layoffs will continue, and the handful of students left in buildings like Douglass will be the ones who pay the price.