Public school enrollment in the Gloucester and Mathews counties has dropped in a steady line for the past 10 years. This experience is repeated statewide, according to a recent study released by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service (coopercenter.org) at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. In Gloucester, enrollment in the public schools has dropped more than 900 students, from 5,383 in the 2015-16 school year to 4,454 in the current year. These figures were provided to the county school board earlier this year. For Mathews, the 10-year decrease is 351 pupils, from 1,110 in 2015-16, according to a Gazette-Journal article on the opening of schools, to 759 in 2025-26, a number taken from school office documents. The Cooper Center study, written by Zach Jackson, stated that the decline began between 2019 and 2020, and in the next two years, after the COVID-19 influence drop, that enrollment recovered slightly. The decline resumed in 2024, he said. The Cooper Center projects ...