to other comprehensive high schools. The student population declined by about 4,000 in 2018, and the expected decline for fall 2019 was 1,500. HISD officials cited enrollment in charter schools as a factor. The district chose to engage in advertising as a way to combat this. Student body history Until 1970 HISD counted its Hispanic and Latino students as "white." Between the 1970-1971 and the 1971-1972 school years, during a period of white flight from major urban school districts across the United States, enrollment at HISD decreased by 16,000. Of that number, 700 were African Americans. The HISD student body had white students as the largest group until the 1972-1973 school year, when the largest group became the black students. The white student body decreased, while the Hispanic student body increased and became HISD's largest student demographic in the 1989-1990 school year. In 1975 the student body was 39% White and 19% Hispanic. In 1981 the district had 190,000 students; 31% of the district's students were Hispanic, and 21% were White. In 1990 the student body was 43% Hispanic, 40% Black, and 15% White. At the time 45% of HISD schools had no white students. By the 1990s HISD's student body was increasingly made up of racial and ethnic minority groups. In 1999 4,400 students in the HISD boundaries were attending state-chartered schools. Of the 9th graders that were in the graduating classes of 2004-2005 in the district, 15% successfully obtained bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees. The U.S. average was 23%. In the District of Columbia Public Schools, 9% of its equivalent 9th grade class received a bachelor of arts or a bachelor of science and/or higher. The preliminary fall enrollment for the 2006-2007 school year (203,163) had 7,000 fewer students than the 2005-2006 student enrollment (210,202), resulting in a more than 3% loss; the 2006-2007 enrollment was a 2.5% decrease from the fall 2004-2005 enrollment (208,454). From the preliminary 2006-2007 student count, the West and Central regions lost the most students, with a combined 4,400 student loss. The enrollment reported for the year in February 2007 was 202,936. As of 2007, of the more than 29 HISD high schools, five had White students as the largest group of students; one of them, High School for Performing and Visual Arts, was the district's only White majority high school. In 2010 Peter Messiah, the head of HISD's Homeless