The fast growth in the district’s student enrollment over the past decade will likely stabilize in the next decade as most residential communities reach build-out, and enrollment into alternative educational options, primarily charter schools, increases, said Stacey Tepera, president of demographic firm Population and Survey Analysts.
“New housing absolutely drives the majority of growth that the district sees in pockets,” she said. “What we have seen in the past of high growth in Fort Bend is beginning to stabilize. This is another hint that we are reaching a new stage in the demographic life cycle.”
The context
Residential communities such as Sienna, Trillium and Harvest Green have attracted jobs and propelled the rise of student enrollment numbers in the past, Tepera said. The need to increase housing space on limited land tracts will likely drive developers to target young professionals without students into multifamily residences.
In the next 10 years, one-third of residential units within FBISD boundaries are projected to be multifamily rental residences, Tepera said.
“This trend is typical for stabilizing districts where large tracts of developable land are unavailable or cost-prohibitive in this district,” she said. “There are some large tracts of land in the south that are not developable because of flooding. Multi-family or higher-density living options become more popular as the community gets to this stabilizing point.”
Meanwhile, many established neighborhoods in FBISD are seeing fewer students, as empty nesters remain in their homes past their student’s graduation, Tepera said. This makes it less likely those enrollment numbers will be regenerated by new families.
Since fall 2017, FBISD has had a 74% increase of students transferring to charter schools at over 1.5 times the rate of the state level, Tepera said. During this time period, 652 students in the FBISD area have enrolled at one of the eight new charter campuses.
“Some years when a new charter school opened up, the number of students pulled from Fort Bend increased by 12% over one year,” Tepera said.
Over the next five school years, roughly 652 students could enroll in one of the five new charter schools set to open, she said.
On Feb. 5, the state Senate passed a $1 billion education savings account package that would grant families $10,000 annually per student to pay for tuition and other educational expenses at an accredited private school, Community Impact reported. Meanwhile, children with disabilities would receive $11,500 each year for private school, and families who homeschool their children would receive at least $2,000 annually.
“There is a general anti-traditional school sentiment that’s affecting the whole state,” Tepera said. “We know anecdotally that it is increasing with the increased likelihood of voucher legislation coming this spring.”
Tepera said the effect of the voucher legislation on student enrollment will be determined based on the following factors:
- Allocated amount
- Student eligibility
- Requirement for transparency at charter and private schools
- Timing of the implementation
In October, the board of trustees voted to eliminate Elementary School No. 55 in the Harvest Green community from the 2023 bond plans, freeing up $47.57 million for other bond projects.
However, community members were disappointed by the lack of pressure alleviated from neighboring Heritage Rose Elementary School, which is 112% overcapacity, trustee David Hamilton said at the Jan. 13 agenda planning meeting.
“[Parents and staff] mobilized their community, passed the bond, but we made the decision to pull the rug from under them,” he said.
Looking at the under-occupied campuses, board president Kristin Tassin said she hopes new district planning will alleviate concerns of overcrowding and potentially offer an opportunity to build new schools that cost less money to operate.
“I see the opportunities for [the planning committee] to maybe provide us with options of consolidations or even potentially, selling some of the older schools, which may enable us to build a newer school which we discussed is less expensive to operate,” she said.
Next steps
Trustees said they hope to expand marketing of FBISD’s current offerings—including specialized learning academics—as an effort to attract students and teachers to the district in competition with charter schools.
“We’re going to show more families that we want them here, that we can serve their needs, and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure they want to be a part of FBISD,” Hamilton said.
