![Nearly 5,000 kids and teens have moved to Maricopa since 2018. In Phoenix, 34,000 have moved out. [Monica D. Spencer]](https://www.inmaricopa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/sign-monica-1.jpg "sign-monica")
Maricopa is bucking a metro trend that has some school districts scrambling.
Although a quarter-million people moved to metro Phoenix last year, growth rates are stagnating, and the local birth rate has dropped by 36% since 2007 — the second-biggest decline in the U.S.
As such, enrollment rates across the metro have also broadly declined. Some 20,000 students have left Arizona public schools in just the last two years, an Idaho newspaper reported Tuesday.
“I think there’s been a decline. But, you know, I’m used to closing schools,” Tom Horne, the Arizona superintendent, told Fox 10 Phoenix last month.
Indeed, Phoenix has lost 34,000 kids and teens since 2018, according to a Dec. 12 analysis of U.S. Census Bureau numbers. Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe and Paradise Valley lost thousands more.
Even Casa Grande lost 1,400 under-20s, the data showed.
But not only did Maricopa make gains in this demographic, those gains were the third highest by raw numbers and second highest by growth rate among all cities in Maricopa and Pinal Counties, according to the same data set.
Maricopa saw a net gain of 4,600 kids and teens since 2018. Only Buckeye (8,700) and Gilbert (8,100) saw more under-20s moving in, and only Buckeye (7.3%) saw higher proportional growth than Maricopa (6.5%).
This, it follows, is conducive to enrollment growth in the city amid a decline state- and metro-wide. Rick Brammer, the Phoenix economist, told Maricopa school board members last week that he expected the district would “grow like crazy.”
Maricopa Unified School District could see enrollment double in the next decade from the current 9,500 students enrolled, he said.
We asked MUSD Superintendent Dr. Tracey Lopeman this morning for a reaction to the two December analyses.
“MUSD is proud to welcome and support Maricopa’s growing population of young people,” Dr. Lopeman told InMaricopa. “Our schools are ready to provide a high-quality education that prepares them for a successful future, and we’re equally committed to offering job opportunities for young talent to grow with us as employees.”
Speaking of the 4,600 people aged 19 and younger who entered the city in recent years, the superintendent said, “The energy and fresh perspective they bring are invaluable to our community.”
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