Between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years, the Durham Public Schools District (DPS) recorded a decrease of 671 Hispanic students.
This 6.1% loss in the district’s Hispanic student population represents a sharp turn in its demographic trends.
According to DPS school enrollment data, between the 2020-21 and 2024-25 school years, the number of students identified as Hispanic steadily increased from 10,482 to a peak of 10,972, raising their representation in the total student body from 33.2% to 35.2%. However, in the 2025-26 school year, the number dropped to 10,301 students (34.1% of the total student body).
According to Nathan Dollar, director of Carolina Demography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, such a marked population decline in a single year is closely linked to external factors.
“Seeing such a rapid decline in just one year is probably related to federal immigration policy,” Dollar explained to Enlace Latino NC. “That is, again, likely; I cannot say for sure, but we do know that we have observed declines at the national level.”
