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Technical Report 7 During the Summer of 1995, two graduate students from the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina were employed by Orange County to collect data through which to calculate updated student generation rates. Data for the study was collected for all new housing units which received a certificate of occupancy between January 1, 1992 and December 31, 1994. Spring 1995 enrollment information for public school students was also collected and matched to the housing unit data. The result was a data set containing a list of all new housing units in the county, their characteristics, and the number of public school children in each housing unit. Two separate data sets, one for the Chapel Hill - Carrboro School District and one for the Orange County School District, were created in this way. Shown in Table 1 are summary statistics from that study. One of the most surprising results is that fewer than 50% of new housing units in both school districts are occupied by families with children currently in the public school system. In addition, the percentage of units with children varies among the two school districts, with the percentage of units with children markedly higher in the Chapel Hill- Carrboro School District (41 %) than in the Orange County School District (23 %). Most of the public school children in new housing units are elementary school children, with smaller numbers in middle school and high school. Compared with the distribution of all public school children in the 1994 -95 school year, new housing units have a greater proportion of elementary school students than the population at large. This comparison is shown in Table 2 below. TABLE 2 COMPARISON OF STUDENT DISTRIBUTION BY SCHOOL TYPE AND SCHOOL DISTRICT 1994 -95 SCHOOL YEAR AND 1992 -94 HOUSING UNITS Source: A Study of Housing Characteristics and Student Generation Rates for Orange County, N.C. In terms of student generation rates, the 1995 study confirmed the results of the 1994 Carrboro study but produced another surprising result. In spite of the large number of families in new housing units without children, there is still a high student generation rate for new housing units in the Chapel Hill - Carrboro School District - 0.64 students per unit. As shown in Table 3 on the following page, the overall student generation rate for new housing in the Chapel Hill- Carrboro School District is substantially higher than the estimate of 0.29 students per unit used in the 1995 Technical Report. The difference is due in part to the fact that the 1995 Technical Report relied on available 1990 Census data. Another reason may be changes in the type of housing units being constructed as well as birth rates in new families. In contrast to the Chapel Hill - Carrboro School District, the Orange County School District has a much lower student generation rate for new housing - 0.33 students per unit. This number is lower School District Orange County Chapel Hill - Carrboro School Type 1992 -94 1994 -95 1992 -94 1994 -95 Housing Units School Year Housing Units School Year Elementary 64% 50% 57% 48% Middle School 17% 23% 22% 24% High School 19% 270/o 21% 28% Source: A Study of Housing Characteristics and Student Generation Rates for Orange County, N.C. In terms of student generation rates, the 1995 study confirmed the results of the 1994 Carrboro study but produced another surprising result. In spite of the large number of families in new housing units without children, there is still a high student generation rate for new housing units in the Chapel Hill - Carrboro School District - 0.64 students per unit. As shown in Table 3 on the following page, the overall student generation rate for new housing in the Chapel Hill- Carrboro School District is substantially higher than the estimate of 0.29 students per unit used in the 1995 Technical Report. The difference is due in part to the fact that the 1995 Technical Report relied on available 1990 Census data. Another reason may be changes in the type of housing units being constructed as well as birth rates in new families. In contrast to the Chapel Hill - Carrboro School District, the Orange County School District has a much lower student generation rate for new housing - 0.33 students per unit. This number is lower