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Schools uncertain if enrollment is slowing

City Schools Decatur is scheduled to begin construction on a new school this fall, either a 3-5 or 4-5 elementary, on seven acres the system purchased in southeast Decatur last summer. CSD is also currently in the second phase of making extensive additions to both Renfroe Middle and Decatur High schools.

The goal with all this building is to meet capacity with permanent classrooms by the 2020-21 school year. But one significant question right now is how the enrollment projects by that year and beyond.

Superintendent David Dude has created an Enrollment Projections Working Group and hopes to announce at least preliminary figures by the end of the school year.

CSD K-12 enrollment has increased 7 to 12 percent each year since 200910. It increased this year by 8.1 percent over 2015-16. But Dude said he isn’t sure if enrollment is slowing or is the same as in recent years.

“There are two schools of thought,” Dude said this week. “There’s the thought that [the current 5,040 students] in 4.2 square miles is much higher that what traditional models suggest, so that growth has to start tapering off. “The second opinion,” he added, “is that people are figuring out how to live in Decatur so the enrollment will keep growing.”