Enrollment Analysis: Hispanic students comprised 22.9% of DeKalb County’s student body in 2024-25 school year

There were 3,604 Hispanic students enrolled in DeKalb County public schools in the 2024-25 school year, 6.3% more than the previous year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

Data showed that Hispanic students made up 22.9% of the 15,728 students during the 2024-25 school year. They were the second most represented ethnicity in the county schools.

Among the 38 schools in DeKalb County, Dekalb High School recorded the highest enrollment of Hispanic students in the 2024-25 school year, with a total of 709 students.

As of the 2024-25 school year, Illinois public schools served just under 1.85 million K-12 students statewide, continuing a slow decline in enrollment from previous years. During that same period, the state recorded a student-teacher ratio of about 17:1 as full-time equivalent teachers rose to a record 137,899.

K-12 enrollment has been declining in Illinois for many years, reflecting the state’s demographic changes. Between the 2017-18 and 2024-25 school years, Illinois public school enrollment declined from approximately two million to 1.85 million students, a decrease of about 153,000 students or 7.6%.

Information in this article was obtained from the Illinois State Board of Education. The source data can be found here.