Agenda - 12-13-1999 - 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Finally, we have a set of projections that have been prepared by the Orange County Planning Department. These were presented to the School Board on November 18, and project an annual growth.rate of 2.6% over the next decade and a constant addition of 300 students per year over the next 25 years. The full Orange County Report is provided here as Attachment 2. All of these projections are shown in Table 3, and 'Figure 3, so that they can be compared. Tables 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d show each set of projections broken down by elementary, middle, and high school categories. NEED FOR ADDITIONAL SCHOOL CAPACITY This district is going to need more schools to accommodate the population growth that this area will be experiencing. The projections described above allow us to anticipate what kind of school capacity will need to be added when. What We'll Need The most rigorous and customized methodology of the three sets of projections is found in the OR/ED Laboratory set. These projections have taken into account historical growth rates in student enrollment, along with cohort projections, assumptions about changing demographics and birth rates, and assumptions about general population growth in this area This yields the most reliable 10 -year projection. However, OR/ED Laboratory does not project beyond 10 years. Looking beyond 10 years results in a considerable decline in reliability of the projections. The 25 -year projection that is based on expected general population growth in the Urban Area provides a reasonable extension of the OR/ED 10 -year projections. The reasonableness of this approach is confirmed by general consistency between the Urban Area approach for the first 10 years and the OR/ED projections. Taken together, then, these two data sets offer a "best guess" scenario for growth in student enrollment in the Chapel Hill- Carrboro School District over the next 25 years. Table 4 shows these "best guess" projections, broken out into Elementary, Middle, and High School subsets. For purposes of estimating how many schools we will need to accommodate this expected population, a general rule about optimal sizes of schools is being proposed as follows: Elementary School ------------ 550 students Middle School--------- - - - - -- 650 students High School - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1500 students The projections that follow do not take into account the School Board's recently adopted plan to lower average class sizes. A discussion of the likely impacts of lowering class sizes on facilities needs appears at the end of this report. 7