Annual Review Of College Station ISD Campus Enrollment Numbers Raises Two Issues

Screen shot from a College Station ISD document.
Screen shot from a College Station ISD document.

Each year, College Station ISD school board members receive a report on campus enrollment and projected headcount for the next ten years.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials from CSISD’s demographer.

Click HERE to read and download presentation materials from CSISD administrators.

The CSISD board learned in December about two issues.

College Station ISD school board members and administrators are facing two enrollment issues.

One, is the response to 101 fewer students in CSISD last fall compared to the year before. Chief financial officer Amy Drozd said a recruitment campaign will start this spring targeting families who live in CSISD but whose children attend school somewhere else.

The other issue, is the imbalance of the population of CSISD’s elementary schools. Enrollment at Pebble Creek elementary will exceed 110 percent of capacity in the fall of 2025 and at Spring Creek elementary in the fall of 2027. In the fall of 2024, enrollment at four other CSISD elementaries will be under 85 percent of capacity and remain under 85 percent for the rest of the decade. They are College Hills, Creek View, Forest Ridge, and Greens Prairie.

That brought up for the first time in ten years, the consideration of changing elementary school boundaries. Superintendent Tim Harkrider said there is a productive way to balance populations of CSISD’s elementary schools. Harkrider says numbers will be reviewed again after the start of the next school year to determine whether to consider changing elementary campus boundaries.

The demographer’s report also indicated enrollment at College Station High School exceeded 110 percent of capacity. But that was before CSISD voters last November approved 62 million dollars of additions and renovations, which administrators say will solve the capacity issue. Last fall’s enrollment at College Station High School was 34 more students than Consolidated. And for the next ten years, the projected difference in headcount will be 40 or fewer between CSISD’s two major high schools.

And there was no opposition by any CSISD board members to continue voluntary transfer options for grades 5 through 8 from Pecan Trail to Cypress Grove intermediate schools and from Wellborn to College Station middle schools, and to continue differentiated staffing.

Click below to hear comments from the December 12, 2023 College Station ISD school board meeting.

Listen to “Annual review of College Station ISD campus enrollment numbers raises two issues” on Spreaker.

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