There are several alleged authors of the sentiment that “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Like unto it is another famous quote, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
School officials and school board members might want to bear these thoughts in mind as they contemplate the most recent study from a Raleigh-based consultant firm who projects that the county’s schools are about to have dramatic enrollment growth.
In fact, so much growth is ostensibly on the horizon that the superintendent, Dr. Aaron Fleming, has already started ruminating aloud on the possible need for a new elementary school and, possibly, a new middle school. Get ready for the multi-million dollar bond referendum, probably on next November’s ballot.
Trouble is that the firm that came up with these dramatic new conclusions has made similar projections before – and they have, consistently, been way off.
This newest study is undoubtedly the first step in officials trying to lay the groundwork for the next proposed bond referendum in order to raise tens of millions more for school construction.
But ABSS enrollment is, and has been stagnant or down – down by 277 students over the past decade, down 325 from seven years ago (2018-2029 school year).
So why do consultants think there’s going to be a sudden explosion in ABSS growth?
And why should anyone believe them? After all, in 2015, the same group projected that ABSS would have 23,445 students by the 2024-2025 school year – or 1,530 more students than ABSS actually had.
Oh, yes, we certainly acknowledge there’s a lot of development going on across the county.
As we pointed out recently, but deserves repeating, there are some offsetting factors that school officials and their consultants rarely discuss.
We’ve predicted the “growth-is-everywhere” rhetoric. Yes, Alamance County has been growing. There is a proverbial boom in residential construction from Gibsonville to Mebane.
But count on school officials to ignore several important details in the footnotes to growth, however. First, some of the growth is on the other side of the county lines – and therefore not the responsibility of Alamance County taxpayers. We’ve mentioned before, but it should be emphasized that while both Gibsonville and Mebane have seen real spurts in growth, much of that has been on the Guilford County side of Gibsonville and the Orange County side of Mebane – lots of development up Lebanon Road in the northern part of Mebane (and Orange County) and Old Hillsborough/Bowman roads (also in Orange County).
Second, new housing does not carry with it the same expectation of school-aged children as it has in the past. Many developers have consistently noted to local city councils that much of the current housing demand is among two opposite ends of the spectrum who don’t have school-aged children: older residents and young singles or young couples.
Even the Raleigh consultants reluctantly acknowledge this trend. Buried deep within their report is the admission that Alamance County’s population is “graying,” –i.e., with not as high a proportion of those of child-bearing age or with school-aged children.
We’ve said before, yes, there are lots of townhouses, apartments, and even some significant single-family home developments. But many of these cater to residents without children.
Another factor which has suppressed the growth in ABSS enrollment is dramatic increases in enrollment among schools providing an alternative approach – charter schools, private and Christian schools, and even parents who have decided to home school.
It is certainly shortsighted and increasingly naive to assume that all new school-age children will enroll in ABSS. In fact, 3,142 students were enrolled in the country’s four charter schools last year (a fifth opens in Mebane, across the county line, this fall); 2,787 were enrolled in private schools; and 2,025 were in home schools, or 7,954 total students whose parents opted for something other than ABSS.
This trend is particularly evident since the statewide school shutdown at the height of the pandemic, which closed ABSS schools for a full year, from March 2020 until March 2021.
Another factor that we didn’t mention before, but a number of readers pointed to, is the Trump Admin-istration’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration across the country, beginning with those with criminal backgrounds.
The number of families who will be removed by virtue of the Trump Administration’s tough policies could be significant, especially inasmuch as illegal immigrants make up a substantial (though undeterminable) proportion of ABSS students. The main observable fact is that Hispanics now make up the second highest percentage of ABSS students – almost 30 percent at last count, compared to around 37 percent white, and a quarter who are black, according to the most recent available figures from ABSS.
In addition to those forcibly removed, another category is those families who may “self-deport,” in the Admin-istration’s terms, with the hope among those families that they might ultimately get to come back to the U.S. through the legal immigration system.
Everyone’s favorite example of the crowded conditions in the county is Garrett Elementary in Mebane; significantly, it is almost the only example. And it is true that the school was over its capacity this past school year – and, we suspect, will be over again as this school year gets underway.
Garrett’s existing overcrowding can be addressed by looking at rezoning, or redistricting.
All one need do is look at the classroom space available at adjacent elementary school attendance zones: primarily the recently-expanded South Mebane, with 160 empty seats. But even a more broad approach shows that also significantly under capacity (even with the revised definitions) is B. Everett Jordan (under by 104).
Of course, school boards absolutely hate to go through the controversies associated with redistricting to adjust attendance zones to relieve overcrowding.
But that’s the most cost-effective method.
And lastly, school board members should dig into how the school system suddenly lost so many seats over the past few years; ABSS officials have redefined the capacity to shrink the capacity of the very same elementary school buildings that existed seven years ago by a whopping 1,119 students – or about the size of two elementary schools.
There are various ways to create the illusion of having crowded schools, and ABSS officials certainly know how to use most of them.
But we wish at least one school board member would exhibit a modicum of curiosity, skepticism, or just plain objectivity to ask at least a few probing questions – not the least of which is why anyone should believe a company whose past projections have been so far off. Credit to school board member Seneca Rogers who has posed the most challenging questions so far.
It’s one thing to just be off in a theoretical sense – when it doesn’t really matter.
But when the superintendent starts talking about a multi-million bond referendum for additional construction, that will ultimately cost taxpayers who inevitably must foot the bill, the company’s track record and current methodology should certainly be examined more closely than school board members typically undertake.
