As the San Francisco Unified School District deliberates over a tentative list of school closures, it will have to account for the fact that the district’s enrollment has declined for several years—and could fall much further. But San Francisco’s public school district isn’t alone in staring down a stark drop in students. Enrollment in districts across California has trended downward for the past 10 years as migration and lower birth rates have left the state with a smaller school-age population. And over the next decade, California’s public schools could lose more than 700,000 students, projections from the state Department of Finance show.The issue is particularly acute for San Francisco Unified, which has for years struggled to address budget shortfalls. This year, state officials gave two fiscal experts veto power over the district’s spending in an attempt to reduce its risk of insolvency. The proposed 11 school closures and mergers would save about $22 million. Nearly 700 of the roughly 10,000 schools in California closed between 2012 and 2021, displacing roughly 167,000 students, according to Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE. The organization found that those closures disproportionately affected Black students, even when accounting for factors such as school performance, poverty rates and enrollment trends. And PPIC noted that the schools that end up closed tend to have higher shares of low-income and English-learner students. Research on the effects of school closures on student outcomes is mixed. Some research indicates closures result in lower academic performance and higher absence rates for displaced students, while other studies find those effects can be mitigated if the students are moved to a higher-performing school, PACE said.