Johnston School District Enrollment Continues To Grow

The Johnston Community School District is growing, but that's not a surprise.

The district could reach more than 7,000 students in ten years, according to an enrollment projection presented to the Johnston Board of Education Monday.

Rob Schwarz from RSP & Associates highlighted a new five-year and 10-year enrollment projection.

"You will be increasing enrollment," he said. "We look out at how enrollment changes from year to year. Generally we see an increase in enrollment from Kindergarten to ninth-grade, in upper secondary we see some decreases, that's pretty typical for districts in the Des Monies area."

Listen to the full presentation on the Johnston School District Website.

RSP had a 99.6 percent accuracy when projecting this year's enrollment.

The district's actual enrollment is 6,309 students, while RSP had projected 6,286 students.

"We're still seeing sting, robust enrollment increases at the Kindergraten level," Schwarz said. "One of the things that stands out is Kindergarten enrollment hit a high point of 490 to 500 students, as they move down there are more 500 student, pushing 600 student classes coming through."

Schwarz said district should start planning to accommodate a high school enrollment of 2,100 to 2,200 students in the future.

"By 2015-17 something has to take place to provide additional capacity," he said of the secondary level. "Something is going to have to happened to continue quality programing."

Schwarz's projections put district enrollment at 6,814 students in the 2017-18 school year and 7,073 in the 2022-23 school year.