Decatur’s school board and commissioners held a joint meeting on annexation recently but Superintendent David Dude said he wants to see updated projections of the school system’s future enrollment, which he expects early this summer.
One of the major challenges for Decatur annexation is how to balance commercial with residential property while not overburdening the city’s schools. Various projections over the last year have total enrollment swelling from its current 4,667 (as of Oct., 2015) to anywhere from 6,300 to 6,500 by 2020-21, and that’s without annexation.
“I thought I’d have the new projections by now, but the hang up is kindergarten, “ Dude said. “Kindergarten enrollment is the foundation for overall projections, and typically that enrollment is correlated to birth rates. But we are getting a lot of kids moving in who are born elsewhere, so we are having to come up with new methods to project kindergarten.”
City Schools Decatur’s five youngest grades each have a total size over 400 — the 2015-16 kindergarten class was 423 — by far the system’s largest classes. By comparison, this year’s senior class was 233.
About the Author
