Natrona County School District #1ET lost 443 students in the 2025-26 school year — its largest non-pandemic drop on record, and the third consecutive year of accelerating decline.

The decline went -387 in 2024, -409 in 2025, -443 in 2026. Each year worse than the last. Wyoming's second-largest district peaked at 13,330 students in 2020 and has shed 1,736 since — a 13 percent drop in six years.

At 11,594 students, Casper has now fallen below its 2001 enrollment of 12,038. A quarter century of growth has been erased.

Not a COVID story

The conventional explanation for enrollment loss — pandemic disruption — fits Casper's initial drop. The district lost 576 students in 2021, the worst COVID-era decline among Wyoming's large districts.

But it recovered 133 students in 2022 and then kept falling. The three years since have been worse than the COVID year itself: 387 + 409 + 443 = 1,239 students lost in 2024-2026, compared to the net 443 lost in the two COVID-affected years of 2021-2022.

Casper's decline is structural, not pandemic-driven. The city's economy runs on oil and gas extraction, and the energy sector has been shedding family-wage jobs since 2015. The private sector isn't absorbing displaced students either — Casper's Excel Academy, a private school, announced closure in July 2025, citing "financially unsustainable" enrollment decline.

Where the students disappeared

The losses are not evenly distributed across Casper's schools. Bar Nunn Elementary has been cut in half since 2020, falling from 339 to 158 students — a 53 percent decline. Pineview Elementary dropped from 364 to 184, nearly a 50 percent loss. Journey Elementary fell from 420 to 264.

Dean Morgan Middle School, the district's largest middle school, lost 281 students — from 904 to 623.

Not every school is shrinking. Casper Classical Academy grew from 466 to 508. Kelly Walsh High School, the district's largest campus, added 60 students to reach 1,954. But these gains are dwarfed by the losses elsewhere.

The big two are falling together

Casper's trajectory mirrors Laramie #1ET (Cheyenne), Wyoming's largest district. Both peaked around 2020. Both are on multi-year decline streaks. Together they account for 28 percent of the state's total enrollment.

The correlation between the two districts' enrollment over 26 years is 0.95. They grew together during the energy boom. They plateaued together. They are now declining together.

When Wyoming's two anchor cities are both accelerating downward, the math for state enrollment becomes unforgiving. There is no large, growing district to offset the losses in Cheyenne and Casper. Casper alone lost 443 students this year — accounting for 18 percent of the statewide decline of 2,483.

If the year-over-year losses keep widening at the current pace, the 2026-27 figure would land somewhere north of 470 students — a fifth straight year of decline and a fourth straight year of acceleration.

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