Enrollment in Georgia’s public schools recovered this fall after a steep drop last year, with gains centered mostly among younger incoming students amid small declines in other grades.

Statewide enrollment fell marginally in most grades, with the sharpest drop, 3%, in sixth grade, according to data recently posted by the state department of education. The declines were offset by growth in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Each of those class levels swelled by about 7% after falling precipitously last year amid the havoc of COVID-19.

Georgia also saw a bumper crop of high school freshmen this year: That grade level spiked by 8% after falling a little last year.

Cobb County saw 10% gains among freshmen and kindergartners, with drops in most other grades. DeKalb County had 12% more freshmen and nearly 16% more kindergartners. Fulton County had 3% more freshmen and a 10% larger kindergarten class.

Gwinnett County, the state’s largest school district with roughly a tenth of the state’s enrollment, deviated from the norm, with growth in most grade levels.https://0797c6e8353fbe1e3685b8ad94499a77.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

The 0.6% enrollment growth statewide follows a 2.2% drop last year, as the pandemic continued to disrupt in-person learning and kindergarten enrollment plummeted nearly 10%.

Enrollment is checked each October and March, with 1,740,812 students counted last month.

That is up just 3.3% from October 2011. By comparison, enrollment grew 14.5% the decade before that.