Austin ISD's student population might increase slightly for the 2014–15 school year but is expected to decline in Austin ISD during the next 10 years, according to the district's annual demographic report, which was presented Jan. 13 to the board of trustees.

The demographic report includes a summary of district population changes and projections showing where people in Austin will live during the next decade, both of which affect school capacity and facility needs, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said.

"This information is critical," Carstarphen said. "It is so essential to our financial projections and budgeting for the district and all of this informs the facility master plan process that we are required to do by the end of June of this year."

The report's projected 2023 enrollment of 84,721 represents 357 fewer students compared with projected enrollment in 2013, according to the district.

The most notable enrollment increase will take place in 2014, according to the report.

In fall 2015, AISD expects enrollment to decrease by about 239 students, and by fall 2016 the report predicts a decline of about 306 students in grades kindergarten through five. The trend is expected to continue until at least 2018, the report states. The projected declines can be attributed to smaller incoming kindergarten classes and other small classes matriculating through the years, according to Lorne Woods, the primary author of the demographic report.

"You guys are doing a fantastic job overall of retaining high school students," Woods told the board, noting retention rates across the country are lower than AISD's.

There are new and planned residential developments in the district of approximately 7,318 units, but student growth from such projects is expected to be limited because of high projected housing costs. Prices have continued to escalate, City of Austin Demographer Ryan Robinson said.

"There's not a single part of your district that's not experiencing some type of intense [housing] pricing pressure, whether it be through redevelopment, whether it be through these existing maturing neighborhoods we're not going to see much refill of maturing neighborhoods because maturing neighborhoods are so much more expensive than they have been in the past," Robinson told the board.

Robinson noted housing is scarce in Austin's core, and one issue the city's land development code rewrite effort, CodeNext, might address is adding more options such as small multifamily structures including sixplexes and eightplexes.

"The city is very concerned about it," Robinson said. "We along with the district would hate to see a central city that's devoid of families with children. I don't think that that's going to happen, but I I think the way we're hurtling now in this very expensive market with very few housing options, young families just don't have that much to choose from."

Potential boundary changes

Beth Wilson, AISD assistant director for planning services, said elementary schools will continue to see some overcrowding in terms of student population in the west and southeast parts of Austin during the next five years. In the south central area, there may be some leveling off, she said.

"We'll have all our schools in Southwest [Austin] within [our] target range for the first time in a very long time," she said, explaining those neighborhoods are maturing.

By the 2018–19 school year, the district expects to have two elementary schools that are above 150 percent capacity in terms of enrollment, but Cook Elementary School will drop from that category when the new North Central Elementary School No. 2 opens, Wilson said.

Trustees pointed to Burnet and Murchison middle schools and Doss and Hill elementary schools as schools that need relief from overcrowding. Carstarphen said efforts that would have helped such schools did not pass in two of the propositions in the district's 2013 bond election.

"Without that money, I will go ahead and say, this is about changing boundaries," Carstarphen said. "This is about doing what will arguably be potentially unpopular concepts for our school communities. And so this is where we are. We said that when we were preparing for the bond, we certainly said it when two of the propositions didn't pass, and I'll say it again. To deal with Burnet, Doss, Murchison [and] Hill, we will need the patience of our community to allow us to really try to work through some creative scenarios without everyone getting upset before we can get started."

More report findings:

• For the 2013–14 school year, AISD saw an enrollment decline of approximately 1,200 students. Possible factors that influenced the 2013 enrollment decline include the growth of charter and private schools in the Austin area; overcrowding in some schools; availability of affordable housing in areas outside Austin such as Pflugerville; Manor and Del Valle; and increasing Austin apartment rent. The district's study also pointed to the loss of students as a result of the elimination of the in-district charter, IDEA Allan, which the district closed.
• Elementary school enrollment will decline slightly during the next five years, but return to an upward trend in 2020. The district attributes the enrollment decline in the 2013–14 school year to a decline in birth rates and a decline in the "market share" of students born in the district
• Middle school enrollments should be consistent until 2020, when AISD expects a decline as a result of smaller grade levels graduating into secondary schools.

AISD commissions a demographic report every year to identify trends and help inform facility-related decisions to accommodate population shifts.

For 2013, AISD selected a new demographer, Davis Demographics & Planning, LLC, to complete the report.