MVHS enrolled 1,573 students for the 2025-2026 academic year, marking the lowest in the school’s history. The current enrollment is 42 students below predictions and 43 students fewer than the 2024-2025 school year, largely due to a smaller freshman class.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, MVHS reported a difference of three students from the enrollment projections, while Fremont High School reported 107, Homestead High School 99, Cupertino High School 44 and Lynbrook 40. In the 2023-2024 academic year, MVHS again reported a difference of just three students, compared to Fremont High School’s difference of 107, Homestead High School’s 99 and Cupertino High School’s 44. Principal Ben Clausnitzer says the past three years’ projections were relatively accurate, and that this year’s difference shouldn’t be considered an emergency.
The enrollment projections for FUHSD schools were spearheaded by the district’s Director of Administrative Services, Jason Crutchfield. He works with residential data from the demographic firm Enrollment Projection Consultants, which studies historical patterns and factors such as housing prices to create population metrics. Crutchfield uses the data produced by the firm to develop enrollment predictions.
These predictions are put into a formula that calculates the average class sizes for each department. The Collective Bargaining Agreement — a contract between the Fremont Education Association, the union that represents FUHSD staff and the district — mandates that classes must have specific teacher to student ratios, which the class sizes are planned to meet. For example, Algebra I must be staffed at a ratio of 20:1, and most English classes at 28:1. As a result of this, accurate enrollment is necessary for assigning sections, according to Clausnitzer.
“There’s the possibility that in the fall between August and October, you can have what’s called collapsing of sections, which would mean we would have to move students to another class,” Clausnitzer said. “That’s not the circumstance for MVHS this year, because we have very few teachers teaching six classes, and where we do have teachers teaching six, the classes are full. It didn’t impact us this year, but it could, there’s always that potential.”
Teachers may be negatively affected in the event of sections collapsing, with the number of sections they teach affecting their salary and insurance. Most teachers take on five sections a year — which is commonly called by teachers and administrators as a “1.0,” meaning they teach five periods — and receive health insurance and the pay of a full-time employee. A “1.2” teacher, like French teacher Sarah Finck, will teach an extra period and receive more compensation accordingly. However, a “0.8” teacher, teaching four periods, receives 80% of a “1.0” teacher’s pay.
“If you’re less than full time and you’re on teacher’s insurance, not your spouse’s insurance, then you have to pay in a little bit,” Finck said. “You also make 80% of the salary that a full time person makes, so if you’ve got kids going to college and houses, rent to pay, then making 80% isn’t ideal.”
The prospect of section collapses has been an increasingly relevant topic in recent years as MVHS contends with decreasing enrollment. The trend began in the 2012-2013 school year due to the high costs of living and housing in the area, and was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused widespread layoffs and migration out of the Cupertino area. Five years after the onset of the pandemic, enrollment numbers continue to decline.
“As we get more and more expensive, fewer families can afford to live here,” Crutchfield said. “We’ve seen the entire Santa Clara County, the entire state of California, declining enrollment from 2018 to 2019. The two most affordable areas to live, and that is affordable by Silicon Valley’ crazy standards, are our Homestead and Fremont areas, and those are also our two biggest schools.”
Even as section numbers may decline, district policy prohibits laying off teachers due to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Instead, the district may refrain from hiring more teachers after teachers retire or split teachers among sites, which can be inconvenient to have to drive from location to location per period, to compensate, according to Clausnitzer.
“In an ideal world, you’re trying to figure out what’s best for students, what’s best for programs and then what’s best for teachers,” Clausnitzer said. “All three of those things can be true.”
