Students enrolled at schools assigned to this area—not necessarily students who live here. School size and enrollment change are not measures of school quality, admissions demand, building capacity or reasons families move.
Eight school years, two data files
1,936 schools across school years 2018–2019 through 2025–2026; 1,905 report in 2025–2026. An older data file covering 2017–2022 supplies school years 2018–2019 through 2020–2021, plus 29 schools that appear only in that file, through 2021–2022. Where the two files overlap, the newer 2021–2026 file is used. Each file lists only the schools it covered, so this combined history does not include every school that ever operated.
Covers New York City Public Schools and charter schools (charter schools are public schools too, run independently; their school codes use district 84), including District 75 (special education) and District 79 (alternative and adult education) programs and early childhood classes in schools.
Citywide and borough totals here add up the schools, including schools not on the map, using the borough each school reports. Published area totals are shown separately; they include additional historical schools and programs. They are never added to school totals.
Small schools: 259 schools had 1 to 199 students in the whole school in 2025–2026; 242 are on the map. This group stays the same whatever years or grades you compare. This is not the previously circulated 219-school claim.
Dates, grades and missing data
The newer data file counts students on November 12 in 2021–2022 and on October 31 from 2022–2023 through 2025–2026. Charter school counts are not audited the same way. Earlier years keep the older file's school-year definitions. The newer file is dated August 20, 2026; files downloaded 2026-09-16.
“All grades” uses each school's total enrollment. Grade groups add up only the grades reported, with 3-K and Pre-K counted separately. The total may include other or ungraded students. Blank values, values hidden for privacy and missing values are kept separate from a reported zero. We never work out a hidden value by subtraction.
Area totals use the schools that report each year; the same-school comparison uses only schools reporting in both years. A missing year doesn't prove a school opened or closed. Percentage change needs a starting enrollment above zero.
Locations and boundaries
Each school's whole enrollment is placed once, at its main building as listed in the city's school directory. It is not split among other campuses or buildings, school zones or where students live, and past moves are not reconstructed.
1,842 of 1,936 schools have a verified location; 94 are not on the map. Neighborhood, ZIP code area and district summaries include only schools whose main building falls clearly inside one area; schools left out are not counted as zero enrollment.
Neighborhoods are the city's 2020 planning neighborhoods. ZIP code areas are the NYC Health Department's version of ZIP codes. School districts are the city's Community School Districts, assigned by where each school's building is; the district number in a school code is the district that manages the school, and the two can differ. None of these are school zones.
Current school directory downloaded 2026-09-16; the publisher gives no effective date. Older neighborhood codes in the directory are not used to assign 2020 neighborhoods.
Areas are assigned using the full official boundary shapes; only the outlines drawn on the map are simplified. A school that matches more than one area is left unassigned.
Inspect and reproduce
The school code (DBN) links the enrollment files to the school directory. Each school's main building is matched to its property lot in city property records. For a few schools we instead use NYC Public Schools' 2019–2020 school locations, but only when the school code, main building and address all agree. We never match by name alone or by nearest school.
NYC Public Schools enrollment data, 2021–2026 ↗
NYC Public Schools archived school data, 2017–2022 ↗
Official source overview ↗
Download the source list and how the files were combined
Download this version of the data
Data prepared 2026-09-18. Numbers don't change while you're on the page, and shared links point to this version.
