An analysis of Liberty County Schools’ future enrollment shows tremendous growth, school board members discovered.
PowerSchool conducted the study, which will be updated annually. It provided a conservative projection, which is geared toward budget planning, and a moderate projection, which is aligned with future facilities planning.
In the next 10 years, according to the analysis, the conservative projection puts the system’s enrollment at 13,400, and the moderate projection estimates the enrollment to be 15,022. For the next five years, the conservative estimate puts the system’s enrollment growth at 17% and the moderate estimate is at 25%.
“Overall, the projections forecast a significant increase across the 10year period based upon the historical enrollment trends and the projected new residential development,” said Arnold Jackson, the school system chief operations officer.
In the last four years, the district’s overall enrollment has gone up 6%, and kindergarten enrollment leads the way at 11%. Enrollment for first through grades has grown 9%, for the middle schools at 3% and for the high schools at 4%.
Kindergarten enrollment is seen as a significant driver of future enrollment across the district, Jackson pointed out.
The study calls for more than 1,500 residential units to be occupied over the next four years, with about 384 new students a year from that. Jackson said the conservative model is based more on likely market conditions over the next four years. Both the moderate and conservative estimates call for more than 1,400 units, either multi-family, single-family attached, such as a townhouse, or single-family detached, to be built in the next four years.
Currently, the school system has 10,816 students, and the analysis pegged the enrollment to be at 10,855. Enrollment over the next five years is projected to be 17% under the conservative model and 25% under the moderate model. The study estimates kindergarten enrollment over the next five years to grow by 13% in the conservative model and by 23% in the moderate model. For first through fifth grades, the estimates are 20% by the conservative figures and 29% by moderate calculations; for middle school grades, 17% under the conservative projections and 23% under the moderate model; and for high schools, 13% under conservative estimates and 18% by moderate projections.
Overall, the moderate model projects a 42% growth in district enrollment and 27% by the conservative estimate.
Under conservative projections, five schools are estimated to experience enrollment growth from 16-49% in the next five years — Waldo Pafford, Button Gwinnett, Liberty and Joseph Martin elementary schools and Snelson-Golden Middle School. Waldo Pafford, at 49%, is expected to see the biggest increase in the next five years, and Snelson-Golden is projected to have the biggest enrollment jump over the next 10 years, at 76%.
At 884 students, Waldo Pafford has the largest enrollment of the system’s elementary schools and Snelson-Golden currently had the largest enrollment of the middle schools, at 899.
Jackson and other staff members looked at current classrooms across the district, how many are in use for instruction and how many are in use for other purposes. Some are being used as conference rooms, for storage or for offices. Of the system’s current 12 schools of kindergarten and above, 50 classrooms were not in use as instructional units.
Including counting the space at Jordye Bacon Elementary, which is now in use for the Horizons program, the Coastal Academy and the Liberty County Boys and Girls Club, the system could hold as many as 18,166 students, under the state Department of Education’s maximum capacity, or up to 20,441 students as a charter school system.
The system will include converting classrooms in use for other purposes back to classrooms, consolidating offices to increase space for classrooms, purchase new classrooms chairs and desks, buy new teachers’ desks and hire teachers as needed as enrollment grows.
Jackson also presented a handful of options to increase capacity, including putting the old Jordye Bacon campus back in use.
One option would add K-5 grades with a fiveyear phase out of Jordye Bacon, adding eight classrooms and extending the cafeteria and increasing student capacity by 224. The estimated cost is $10 million.
A second option calls for renovation of Jordye Bacon and sitework, covering 68,843 square feet and adding 40 classrooms to make space for 625 students at a cost of $20 million.
“This would really renovate the entire school wall to wall, put in new air conditioning, flooring, basically gut the building from wall to wall,” Jackson said.
Another option would add 24,000 square feet to the existing campus, with a cost of $30 million, and a $10 million building addition to connect the wings.
“So there won’t be any canopies, similar to what we did at Bradwell,” Jackson added.
Another choice calls for demolishing the old Jordye Bacon buildings and building a new school on the 15-acre site. Building a new school, to include design and community feedback, could take up to three years. The costs for a 600-student school are $36 million, for an 800-student school at $42 million and $52 million for a school with up to 1,000 students.
A fifth option calls for a five-year phase out of Jordye Bacon and purchasing 50 acres to build a new school.
“Currently we have the capacity to handle the increased enrollment, but we wanted to share some of the plans we’ve thought about for the future,” Jackson said.
Jackson added the system gets more money from the state to build a new school than it does to renovate one. There is room for additional wings at Liberty Elementary and Midway Middle, though the schools are rather large, Jackson said.
Dr. Franklin Perry said the options on the Jordye Bacon campus are just proposals at the time.
“The state still has Jordye Bacon as an available school,” he said. “In order for us to get state funding to build a school, we have to phase it out.”