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Hispanic students now make up more than half of the student body in Ogden School District, according to enrollment numbers released Friday by the Utah Office of Education.
Ogden was already one of Utah's three so-called "minority majority" school districts, along with Salt Lake City and San Juan, in which minority students outnumber white students.
But new enrollment numbers show that 50.8 percent of students in Ogden School District are Hispanic, marking the first time that Utah's largest minority group has grown to become the majority within a school district.
San Juan School District had previously become an American Indian majority school district, and remained that way with the new numbers.
"It's a huge point of pride," Ogden School District spokesman Zachary Williams said. "The population that we serve is really the Utah of the next 20 or 30 years."
Statewide, enrollment in public schools increased 1.5 percent — or 9,602 — to a total of 622,153 students, according to state Office of Education spokesman Mark Peterson.
The numbers are based on an annual census of students conducted each year on Oct. 1.
Racial and ethnic minority students now account for 24.1 percent of the total public school population, up from 23.5 percent in 2013. Peterson said that growth is equal to roughly 7,000 additional minority students in Utah schools.
Williams said there are challenges that correlate with increased diversity, including high numbers of English language learners and cultural barriers. But he added that the makeup of Ogden School District puts schools on the front lines of the changing face of education in the state and country.
"The diversity in our district and some of the challenges that creates, as far as providing high-quality education, those are challenges that are going to become more and more widespread as the state grows," he said.
This year's enrollment figures continue a trend of slowing growth, with the 1.5 percent student increase following 2 percent growth in 2013 and 2.2 percent growth in 2012.
In addition to growing numbers of minority students, the number of children attending charter schools also has continued to increase. Charter school enrollment climbed 11 percent since 2013 and now makes up just less than 10 percent of total public school enrollment.
Utah's largest school districts
Alpine • 73,570 students
Davis • 69,139
Granite • 67,660
Jordan • 51,806
Canyons • 33,676
Utah's smallest school districts
Daggett • 174 students
Tintic • 249 students
Piute • 302 students
Rich • 478 students
Wayne • 482 students