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Enrollment in the Bristol Warren Regional School District has been steadily declining for 20 years. Since the start of this century, the student population has declined 18 percent.

According to data maintained by the Rhode Island Department of Education, at the start of this school year there were 649 fewer students enrolled in the public schools than there were at the start of the 2000-2001 school year.

To put that into perspective, the Bristol Warren district lost the entire student bodies of Guiteras Elementary School (245 students) and Colt Andrews Elementary School (319 students), plus a few classrooms at Rockwell Elementary School (255 students), in the past two decades.

With reported October enrollment of 3,143 students, the Bristol Warren district, despite serving a population of nearly 33,000 people living in the two towns, has 245 fewer students than neighboring Barrington. To put that into perspective again, Bristol and Warren have twice as many residents but an entire elementary school fewer students.

The obvious question is: Where have all the kids gone?

The obvious answer is: They switched to private schools.

Except they didn’t.

Be sure to check the charts above.

Private school enrollment from both Bristol and Warren has also declined precipitously — almost 80 percent.

Again, take a pause and let that sink in … According to data maintained by the state, 1,096 Bristol or Warren residents attended private or parochial schools at the turn of the century. Today there are 267 — a 76 percent decline in enrollment.

In this case, there are some obvious reasons. Both towns saw the closure of a Catholic school in the past 20 years — St. Elizabeth’s in Bristol and Our Lady of Fatima in Warren.

Yet the trend is consistent in the non-parochial, independent schools as well. Bristol’s independent school enrollment has declined 84 percent; Warren’s has declined 76 percent.

So the public schools have lost nearly one in five students in 20 years. And the private schools have lost four out of five.

Once again, where have all the kids gone?

Towns are getting older

To get closer to the truth, consider the demographics of these two communities, because these towns, they are a’changing.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, Bristol had 4,388 residents under the age of 18. By last estimate (2019), that population had declined to 3,273. Twenty years ago, 20 percent of the town’s residents were children. Today, fewer than 15 percent are children.

In the same U.S. Census, Warren had 2,330 residents under the age of 18. At last count, it had 1,709.

At the other end of the spectrum, the population of those ages 65-plus have increased sharply. Bristol’s retiree population nearly doubled, from 3,866 to 6,903 senior citizens. Warren’s grew less dramatically, but still increased some 8 percent.

Whether people are living here longer, raising their children and staying in the same house as the kids grow up and leave, or whether the region is becoming more appealing to retirees and less appealing to young families, the bottom line is clear … These towns are getting older. And their school-age populations are shrinking.