The Redwood student body is shrinking.
After peaking in 2020, the student population is expected to continue declining over the next four years. Educators from Marin County schools say this is because of an increase in housing prices and an older average age of the county.
According to EdData, 2,019 students were enrolled at Redwood during the 2020-2021 school year. The enrollment at Redwood has since declined to 1,754 students during the 2024-2025 school year, marking a 13 percent decrease.
According to Redwood Principal Barnaby Payne, declining student enrollment is due in part to lowering birth rates, as well as a relatively older population in Marin. With a median age of 47.3 years old, Marin was ranked the eleventh oldest California county in 2023 by Data Commons.
“As our student population goes down, the average age of people in Marin County is increasing. Marin is getting older generally because the cost of living is so high, so it’s hard for new people to come in,” Payne said.
Other Tamalpais Union High School District schools are also facing lower student enrollment.
“Archie Williams’ and Tam’s enrollments are going down as well, and to an extent, a little bit faster than Redwood,” Payne said.
This pattern is unlikely to change, as Redwood enrollment rates are projected to continue declining.
“We’re predicted, within the next four years or so, to be down to around 1,200 students,” Payne said.
The number of students attending Redwood’s feeder middle schools is also decreasing. This is an important factor in Redwood enrollment.
One significant school that feeds into Redwood is Kent Middle School, which enrolls students in grades fifth through eighth.
Kent had 560 students enrolled in the 2018-2019 school year. However, according to Principal Grant Althouse, only 485 students are enrolled for the 2025-2026 school year.
Similarly to Payne, Althouse said that a main reason for this decrease is Marin contains a comparatively older population.
“In Marin, there are a lot of retired people that have already raised families. If a lot of the single family residences contain older retired families, then there’s not going to be as many children being born who would eventually attend schools,” Althouse said.
Althouse said that Marin’s high cost of living also has an impact on the number of students enrolled at Kent Middle School.
“Marin County is a fairly expensive place to live and raise a family,” Althouse said. “As inflation continues to climb and the economy has some bumps in the road, it may be harder for people who are either preparing to have a family or have a young family to live here.”
In Tiburon, the Reed Union School District (RUSD) also feeds students into Redwood. Dr. Chris Kim, Chief Business Official of RUHSD also recognized the shift in student enrollment in recent years.
Kim stated that in the 2016-2017 school year, 1,526 students were enrolled in RUSD. This is in contrast to the current school year, as only 1,068 students attend RUSD, an over 30 percent decrease in student enrollment.
“That would actually be even larger of a drop in enrollment, were it not for that two years ago, the state of California started enrolling TK [transitional kindergarten],” Kim said. “RUSD has almost 100 TK students. Doing the math, were it not for the TK entry, we would actually have 968 students.”
Read more about the effects of declining enrollment: Enrollment in decline: Course cuts and the effects on students’ future interests
