Portland
78% of Maine Districts Never Recovered From COVID
In the spring of 2023, Maine's public school enrollment ticked up for the second consecutive year. The COVID shock appeared to be fading. Districts that had lost hundreds of students were cautiously o...
Maine Lost More Students This Year Than Any Since COVID
South Portland is preparing to cut nearly 80 positions, 42 of them teachers, and close an elementary school. Portland proposed eliminating 20 jobs from a $180 million budget. Lewiston is making staffi...
Lewiston Is Growing While Maine Shrinks
Across the river from Auburn, which has lost 331 students since 2017, Lewiston is doing something almost no district in Maine can claim. It is growing. Three consecutive years of enrollment gains, fro...
One in 18 Maine Students Is Now Black
Nine years ago, a Black student in a Maine public school classroom was a statistical rarity: 3.5% of total enrollment, roughly one in 29. Today that share has climbed to 5.6%, one in 18. In a state th...
168,923: Maine Hits Its Enrollment Floor
The last time Maine added students to its public schools was 2023. Since then, the losses have grown each year: 1,307, then 1,562, then 2,134. The 2025-26 school year brought enrollment to 168,923, th...