CSD Enrollment Projection of +12% Hits Its Mark
Decatur Metro | August 13, 2012Student enrollment at City Schools of Decatur rose by 12% since last year. A great and/or troubling thing, depending on who you’re talking to.
But regardless, it should be noted that 12% is exactly the overall level of growth estimated by the Enrollment Committee’s “aggressive” enrollment scenario released earlier this year, which projected a total of 3,630 students this school year.
The actual number as of opening day? 3,627. Pretty good.
Of course, there was bound to be a bit of over/under by grade…
…but overall that’s an impressive feat. Keep it up enrollment committee!
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I’m curious to know if the trend is that our graduating classes have historically been half the size of our kindergartens, or if this shows a big growth coming for our school system. Does anyone know?
I asked the Asst. Superintendent about the implications of this growth a while back. His detailed answer might provide a bit of helpful context here…
“We have done some enrollment modeling through 2018 (with the full knowledge that demographic predicting that far out with the growth we have experienced certainly is sketchy), and with the opening of Westchester slated for 2014-2015, our five K-3 schools (Clairemont, Glennwood, Oakhurst, Westchester, Winnona Park) can handle the large classes coming up. For instance, if we continued educating grade levels of 360 students (we predicted 353 Kinder for 1213), we would have 1,440 projected students in K-3 CSD schools. Our buildings contain 68 classrooms X 23 students in each room = 1,564 capacity.
The 4/5 Academy is adding four via SPLOST IV Projects. That will make 27 classrooms for 4th and 5th students. When grade levels of 360 move up to those grade levels, the highest anticipated school size would be 720 in 2016-2017 (27 classrooms X 28 students = 756 students).
Renfroe is planning on adding up to seven instructional spaces as part of SPLOST IV Projects as well. If the growth continues and these move-in families stay living in Decatur, RMS could reach 1,080 (360 X 3). RMS had a “crowded capacity” of 1036 before the addition of these rooms according to work from the previous Reconfiguration Committee: ( New Link ).
That leaves DHS which will take more long-range planning but the good news is that the grade level we are watching are first graders for 2012-2013. That grade level won’t be at DHS until 2020-2021.”
While those numbers may work well on paper where the assumption is that all students are in traditional classes and evenly divided by school and by grade, in reality things are often not as clear cut and straightforward.
The elementary school picture in particular looks possibly daunting. Using the assistant superintendent’s numbers it appears there is room for only 124 additional elementary students system wide – or 24.5 per school which equals one classroom. Not a lot of wiggle room for starters.
From there, one needs to factor in the unequal distribution of students. A handful of extra second graders at one school, for example, may push a school past the max class size tipping point at which point they would need to hire a new teacher and free up an additional classroom.
Then there are non-traditional programs such special ed, gifted, ESOL, etc.. that typically require smaller class sizes. I’m not sure what programs are at each individual school but there are likely to be some. Were they included in the average of 23 students per classroom?
And lastly, who is to say the average class size will cap at just 360 students? The two lowest grades are already above that figure and it’s only the first week of classes.
Yes, long-term projections through 2018 may be “sketchy” but the circumstances described above could be reality at the elementary level in just two short years, no?
I agree, but this is kind of a catch-22. If we operate under the assumption that enrollment will continue to skyrocket and we build too many classrooms, people will be upset about waste. If we build too few classrooms, we have overcrowding and have to use trailers and/or possibly redistrict until we can build new classrooms. I think the best course of action is to get the best projections we can (although I would use the upper end numbers and not conservative estimates) and proceed accordingly.
One more point – these problems also have a way of working themselves out. If the schools do become overcrowded, they will be less desirable, and people will either put their kids in private school or move to another school district. If we have excess capacity, parents will continue to buy or rent any house that hits the market in CoD.
I agree with sfmaster below re: FAVE. We are cutting it too tight, so maybe we should go back to the drawing board before we break ground on the expansion. (Although I am still half convinced that in a few years we will have to go back to the K-5 model b/c of growth, and then FAVE may be too big).
Good point about how the market tends to self adjust over time. My primary concern, however, is whether the back-of-the-envelope calculations at the elementary school level are truly the best way to determine current and future classroom capacity at each of the schools. Perhaps CSD has a more nuanced in-house formula and the numbers the asst. supt. shared were just for illustrative purposes? The words “for instance” and “if” were used, after all.
Case in point, I just learned last week that my daughter’s elementary school has a portable art station rather than a dedicated art classroom. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing (hey, I went to school in a tiny two-room schoolhouse in Maine and lived to tell the tale!) but it could be an indication of space limitations. And if school enrollment continue to inch up in future years with each large kindergarten class, there’s bound to be some sort of impact (lunches at 10:30, for example, more portables, for example).
I don’t believe that one example is space related. My daughter was in elementary school (Oakhurst) years before any space concerns and they had the art-cart then too.
I think it’s funding related, in terms of the number of art teachers they can hire.
Thanks – bad example (and assumption) on my part!
Re self-adjustment in popularity and enrollmwnt–yes, that does happen in school systems. I’m told that there was a time when DeKalb was the premier school district in the area and CSD trailed. But you hate what it means for the kids who are caught in the decline. You only get to be a student once. We have to consider the students in the middle of transitions as well as the ones who will be there later.
More than twice as many first graders as high school seniors. Holy &*#&
Yea Enrolllment Committee! Hope we keep that committee going. BTW, the final number may be even higher because the staff I’ve talked to say that students continue to stream in after opening day. That’s to be expected given the August 1 deadline. You would think that families moving or transfering into the system would have checked out the start date and adjusted accordingly but sometimes there’s already been huge amounts of money plunked down for airfare or sleepaway camps or summer gifted programs or moving vans or whatever.
Registration numbers have continued to decline since 080112. On 081312, one person enrolled during our morning registration window. We believe these numbers (which are not first day of school numbers, instead they represent 080912) will remain constant.
I read the enrollment report which has this chart plus some other details. I also appreciate the Assistant Superintendent’s run down of the implications.
Am I reading correctly then that even with the building the 4/5 is the one place where we are likely to be tight. Even though we are about to break ground in months.
I think there is movement toward some great planning here. I am hoping we make sure to think about the impact on the 4/5. It’s looking very tight very quickly. My understanding is that the new classrooms don’t add capacity in the cafeteria or other public spaces. I fear that we create a really untenable environment. It’s good news that RMS and DHS are for the most part OK.
Also of note in the report was how a good chunk of incoming K kids have not been in any school before. Likely some are fully prepared regardless but my guess is that many are not at all ready for K, especially with the increasing expectations.
I think it’s a great thing for the enrollment committee to have figured out and I think our system and community (DEF??) can think about how to address this issue to ensure success at school.
It’s interesting to see the enrollment number by grade and how it’s changed due to move-ins. The grade level one year older than my son’s used to be quite a bit smaller and now it’s a great deal larger.
I moved to Decatur before I had kids and would read in the Decatur focus about graduating classes from DHS with under 100 students.
Shoot… nine years ago CSD had entire schools with 80-120 kids in them. Imagine that.
Oh wow…. that makes me feel old.
So, at what point do they need to move from two teaching teams (Gold and Blue) to three teams at Renfroe? It seems that at some point two teams and seven periods won’t cut it anymore.
Good idea. Actually, many kids call themselves “green” because they have teachers from both teams. The teachers still work as teams but there’s too many kids, too many special schedules like Band, Choir, ESS, advanced math, whatever to fit all the kids into just two teams.
I am amazed that enrollment among seniors rose that much!
Me too. Most folks try not to change schools in senior year so wouldn’t think transfers and move ins would play a big role in the increase, but could be wrong. Maybe the last of the low enrollment classes moved out? Maybe our dropout rate is decreasing? Or folks are moving out of Decatur less frequently?
Last year’s senior class = 159.
A big shoutout to CSD for all of this information (and the planning surrounding it). As some of the posters above mention, we’ve got some challenges with our burgeoning enrollment. But it’s driven by the excellent reputation of our schools, and (in contrast to some nearby schools districts) we’ve got a group of thoughtful and competent folks here managing things, so I’m confident we’ll be able to work things out.
12% y-o-y growth in a fully developed area is astounding, really. I don’t think anything other than a quickly-developing exurban area could match those numbers. Everyone that makes Decatur the best place to live in Georgia should be congratulated.
Is there anywhere that shows statewide student population growth stats by school system?
I am outraged that they missed the projections for K and 7 by 5% and 6% percent, respectively. It’s outrageous.
Hoping Family Dollar stocks contraceptives.
Actually, they will be REQUIRED to under the new C.O.D. One Child Policy. Unfortunately, they will cost significantly more than a dollar as you will be required to buy only the city approved ones in either green, yellow or blue. I feel sorry the poor souls who will need the green ones.
But recycled contraceptives are provided for free.
The people on the conference call that I’m currently attending are wondering what the hell made me suddenly laugh out loud.
I have to remember to hit the mute button before reading J_T’s posts.
Hah! You earned a shot of Jager with that one, Junderscore.
I told my husband this. His immediate comment was that he hoped they stocked the blue ones because they last longer.
Quite proud of what we’ve accomplished in CSD, and believe all children in the metro area deserve an excellent education.
Annex Atlanta!
Annex Atlanta!
Annex Atlanta!
hey Rick, speaking of CSD, I think we share a teacher this year (well, our kids do!).
And speaking of annexation, I hope this chart takes the residential annexation off the table. It makes zero financial sense.
Cool. Paden or Nesbitt? We’re happy with both so far.
Re: annexation. Adding more residential would be like trying to put 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 pound bag.
Paden. For some reason, I thought your kids were older!
If I’m reading this right, there are more than 900 students at DHS. That’a bordering on a 25 % increase fom when my big’un graduated in ’06. So if all these families are flooding into town, why is my house worth less now than it was then?
You live near Westchester?
Yep. Two blocks.
Figured. What a school system does has a tremendous impact on a community, beyond just what happens inside the buildings. Conversely, what happens outside the buildings, e.g. local economy, real estate market, gentrification, community decline, families moving in or out, family stress, willilngness to pay high taxes, has a profound effect on a school system. That’s why City and CSD should work closely together even if officially they are quite separate.