Since 2021, Archie Williams has faced a significant decline in student enrollment, a trend that is reshaping the school’s course offerings, staffing, and elective programs. Projects show the current enrollment of 1,141 students in the 2024-25 school year to drop to 969 by the 2028-29 school year, reflecting wider demographic shifts in Marin County. While the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) has aimed to adapt through retirements and scheduling changes, the impacts are already being felt in classrooms across the campus.
Founded in 1951, Archie Williams’ enrollment was 917 and increased steadily until 2020, when enrollment plateaued at 1331 students. From the 2020-21 to 2021-22 school year, enrollment dropped by 45 students—the first decline in enrollment in the past decade at Archie Williams—and then again by 62 students by the 2022-23 school year.
Consequently, Archie Williams has responded to declining enrollment with cuts to extracurricular programs. Former music director at Archie Williams and current music director at Redwood High School Chip Boaz left Archie Williams after the TUHSD decided to reduce the music director position from full-time to part-time in March 2023.
“I was the music director [at Archie Williams for] 23 years,” Boaz said. “It was a surprise and it was a little bit of a disappointment because I had spent a long time at Archie and worked pretty hard for the music department there. I would have loved to have stayed and seen that through at the end of my career, but the district was really fair and made sure I was taken care of.”
The district offered Boaz a job teaching at Archie Williams as a part-time music director, but financial realities prompted him to accept a position at Redwood instead.
“Due to declining enrollment, the district decided to cut [my] position to part-time. I did consider it, and the district was really great about giving me time to reflect and look at my budget in life and figure out if that would work for me, but at the end of the day, with the economy, rising prices, and three children—I could not afford [to work part-time],” Boaz said.
According to Archie Williams counselor Sheila Souder, enrollment trends at Archie Williams predict a steady decline over the next few years. Projections are based on lower enrollment in local elementary and middle schools, as well as county-wide population shifts.
“In the school year 2024-25, we have [1,141] students at Archie Williams; for 2025-26, the projection is [1,105]; for 2026-27, the projection is [1,064]; and for 2027-28, it’s [1,031],” Souder said. “When enrollment goes down like that, we offer less courses because we’re simply more limited.”
The TUHSD hopes to address enrollment challenges without resorting to layoffs, but smaller student numbers limit course availability and staffing needs.
“The district hopes that there will be less teachers due to attrition, and people will retire. When I leave the counseling office, because I’m the most senior person here, it’ll just be Molly [Baker], Molly [Yasuda], and Kyle [Kassebaum]. We won’t replace me, they’ll just split those 800 kids,” Souder said.
Souder attributes the decline in enrollment to Marin County’s high housing costs, which make it difficult for families to settle in the area and for schools to sustain enrollment numbers.
“It’s really hard to afford to live in Marin County,” Souder said. “For people who have a lot of wealth, they put their kids at San Domenico for $68,000 a year or Marin Academy or Marin Catholic. When something goes poorly with the economy, sometimes those private school kids come [to the TUHSD], but [more often] people move out of the area.”
Specialized programs like Communications Academy (ComAcad), one of Archie Williams’ three academies available to upperclassmen students, are also vulnerable due to declining enrollment in the TUHSD. After experiencing a decrease in total enrollment during the 2023-24 school year, ComAcad ran with only seniors this year. In February 2025, the program received an insufficient number of applicants again, prompting the Archie Williams administration to shut down the academy indefinitely. Senior ComAcad student Roy Quaas feels lucky he was able to experience ComAcad during his time at Archie Williams.
“ComAcad has been one of the most impactful experiences I’ve had in my high school career. It’s an incredible program that provides opportunities towards anyone with creative interests or interests in creative endeavors,” Roy said.
Roy identifies the pressure students face to prioritize AP courses and the increasing competitiveness of college admissions, which often shifts focus away from electives.
“I think that shrinking size [at Archie Williams did contribute to ComAcad’s closure],” Roy said. “You have less people in a class who are interested in art. Combine that with the fact that a lot of people are much more interested in taking AP classes in order to appear more attractive towards colleges, and ComAcad’s interests towards people get kind of overshadowed by people thinking, ‘How am I going to look academically attractive towards these colleges that are historically very hard to get into?’”
Enrollment will continue to decline at Archie Williams, as the student body is predicted to decrease to under 1000 by the 2028-29 school year. The effects of declining enrollment are evident in course offerings, staffing levels, and the availability of specialized programs, and in the coming years the TUHSD will face difficult decisions about what to preserve and what to let go.
