Baltimore City has lost 13% of its under-18 population between 2015 and 2025, a decline steep enough to have already shuttered at least one neighborhood school and to be reshaping debates over which public campuses the city can still afford to keep open. The falloff is roughly six times sharper than the citywide population drop overall, and it stands in stark contrast to nearby counties that are still gaining young families.
St. Michael-St. Clement School in Overlea closed in June due to declining enrollment, according to reporting by WBFF. The Catholic school's collapse was steep and fast: Catholic Review reported in April that enrollment was projected to fall to just 150 students for the 2026-27 school year, a 52% drop from 315 students in the 2023-24 school year, leaving the school with a $500,000 deficit it could not overcome. The Archdiocese of Baltimore had already poured more than $2.5 million into the school over the preceding five years trying to keep it afloat.
The school itself was a product of an earlier round of consolidation. St. Michael-St. Clement School was formed in July 2017 through the merger of St. Michael the Archangel School, founded in 1926, and St. Clement Mary Hofbauer School, founded in 1932, according to the school's own history. Both institutions had operated in the Overlea and Rosedale communities for close to a century before combining, and now that merged campus has closed too.
A Family's Firsthand View of the Decline
The demographic shift is playing out in individual households as well as balance sheets. Lafayette Boone Jr., whose 5-year-old son attended St. Michael-St. Clement for preschool, is among the parents who watched the closure unfold, per the WBFF report. The story, written by Baltimore Sun reporter Jean Marbella and republished by WBFF, drew on data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT Data Center tracking child population changes across Baltimore City, Maryland counties, and the nation.
That data shows just how uneven the pattern is across the region. Frederick County saw a 17% increase in its child population over the same period, while Anne Arundel and Carroll counties each grew roughly 3%. Baltimore, Harford, and Howard counties held roughly level numbers of under-18 residents, according to the same WBFF report — meaning Baltimore City's steep loss is an outlier even among its immediate neighbors, not part of a uniform regional trend.
How Baltimore's Losses Compare Statewide and Nationally
Maryland as a whole saw less than a 1% drop in its child population between 2015 and 2025, and the United States overall saw about a 2% decline over the same span, the WBFF report noted. Baltimore City's 13% drop dwarfs both figures. Separately, U.S. Census Bureau estimates show the city's total population fell 2.7% between April 2020 and July 2025, settling at 569,997 — meaning the exodus of children is happening far faster than the city's population loss generally.
National birth trends help explain part of the squeeze. Provisional CDC data found U.S. births dropped 1% in 2025 to roughly 3.6 million, continuing what WBFF's reporting called a decades-long decline in national birth rates. Reporting by The BayNet found Maryland's birth rate has dropped below the national average as women delay or forgo childbirth, with the CDC data showing fertility gains between 2015 and 2024 occurring exclusively among women 35 and older.
Ripple Effects for Baltimore's Public Schools
The pressure is not limited to Catholic education. The Baltimore Banner reported in April 2025 that total enrollment in Baltimore City Public Schools dropped 6% between 2018 and 2024, a decline that has already forced hard budget choices. Hoodline reported in June that the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners adopted a $1.95 billion budget for the 2026-27 school year while grappling with rising operating costs and enrollment declines that have prompted debate over closing underutilized campuses.
That fight has already claimed at least one school outright. New Song Academy in Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood was slated for closure due to safety, transportation, and operational issues, Hoodline reported in November 2025, in a case that left the surrounding community without a longtime hub for youth programs. The remaining child population in the city also skews poorer than the state as a whole: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data shows children under 18 make up roughly 18% of Baltimore City's population, and 22% of those children live below the federal poverty line, compared with 9.1% statewide — meaning the loss of neighborhood schools falls hardest on families with the fewest alternatives.
Empty Buildings Left Behind
Closures also leave behind a physical legacy that has already turned dangerous elsewhere in the city. Hoodline reported in July that vacant school buildings present ongoing public safety hazards, pointing to a fire at the former Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary/Middle School campus, which permanently closed in 2020 due to declining enrollment before catching fire this year. As Baltimore's child population keeps shrinking, the question of what becomes of shuttered schools like St. Michael-St. Clement — and whether they sit vacant long enough to become liabilities of their own — remains open.
