Over the last decade, the Guilford County School system has added twice as many employees as it has students.

In other words, each additional student enrolled in the system has equated to two new school employees.

On the one side of that equation, the number of students enrolled in Guilford County Schools has remained almost unchanged since 2008.

While the population in Guilford County is up from around 478,000 in 2008 to roughly 527,000 in the most recent estimate, more students are opting for charter schools, private schools, home schooling, early employment or other options outside of the Guilford County school system.

In the 2008-2009 school year, the average daily enrollment in Guilford County’s school system was 70,968, while, in 2017-2018, it was 71,304.  That’s an increase of 336 students – an increase of less than half a percentage point.

The highest that average enrollment ever got in the last decade was in the 2012-2013 school year, when it reached 71,885.  The average student enrollment number has dropped every year since then.

However, while the number of students in the system has remained level for a decade, the number of school system employees has grown.  In the 2008-2009 school year, the number of employees working for the schools was 9,368, while, in 2017-2018, that number had grown to 10,027 – an increase of 659 employees, or a 7 percent increase.  That means the school system has roughly two new employees for each new student in the system.

Both a decade ago and today, Guilford County Schools ranks as Guilford County’s top employer making up just over 4 percent of Guilford County’s entire work force both then and now.  The school system beats Cone Health –with about 9,000 employees – for that distinction.  After those top two employers, there’s a steep drop off to the employer that comes in third: the City of Greensboro, which currently has just under 3,000 employees.

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