School board members and administration officials in the Aledo Independent School District may very well feel like jugglers as they address the issue of continued and accelerating growth in the district.
Representatives from Population and Survey Analysts (PASA) laid out to the board what their estimates tell them is coming to the district in the next five to 10 years at a workshop on Monday, June 27.
PASA provides a range of services to school districts, including student projections, long-range facilities planning, bond election planning, attendance zone and long-range planning, and mapping.
Kris Pool, director of planning for PASA, addressed the board first and explained the methodology behind the projections that were presented to the board.
“We start with housing,” Pool said, adding that they looked not just at plats and permits, but they spoke to developers and landowners.
“We map everything because we think that a picture’s worth 1,000 words,” Pool said. “I want you to be able to understand absolutely where everything is that’s going on.”
PASA geo-coded every student in the district to map out where past and current student population are.
Pool said the COVID-19 pandemic in some ways had the opposite effect of what many thought would happen.
“We thought, ‘well, everybody’s gonna stop doing what they’re doing.’ And, instead, it was quite the opposite. And this housing acceleration came on this big boom, low interest rates,” Pool said.
While school enrollment across the state declined by 2.2 percent during the pandemic, it rose 4.4 percent in the Aledo ISD.
Among school districts in the greater DFW metro area composed of the 12 counties that include and surround Dallas and Fort Worth, Aledo is 38th in terms of current enrollment, but is 15th in percentage growth and 13th in numerical growth in the metro area for the past five years.
AISD is 12th in numerical growth for the past year.
Demographically, the AISD has a slightly higher median age (37.6) than the metro area (35), but a significantly higher median income ($129,012 compared to $72,882).
The district also has a higher proportion of people aged 5-17 than the metro area at large (23 percent to 19 percent).
Pool said the demographics make Aledo ISD very interesting to new parents that might look at it compared to others.
History of growth and what’s coming
Aledo ISD’s student population has grown every year since 2008, but the rates of growth are increasing as well. Last year, the district enrollment grew by 9.6 percent, up from 4.4 percent in the pandemic year and five percent the previous year.
With a couple of exceptions, the early elementary through fifth-grade segment has accounted for the largest amount growth each year, and that segment had the lion’s share of growth in 2021-2022 with more than 400 students.
The growth will only accelerate in the future based on numbers provided to the board by Angela Fritz, a demographer with PASA.
Fritz said employment in the DFW area is strong and has “definitely recovered” from the pandemic.
“There’s strong job growth that continues certainly across the region; Fort Worth specifically has had multiple announcements in the area,” Fritz said. “And as you all are aware, there are also large tracts that are primed for development in Aledo ISD as well. And that’s important in terms of keeping the employment pipeline filled and potentially having an even larger market to drive demand for continued housing in the area.
“So, the big question on everybody’s mind, including ours at PASA, is new home construction and the housing market and what’s going to happen with that.”
Interest rates and the national economy may play a role. The historically low mortgage rates have increased significantly.
Supply chain and labor availability are also factors.
Fritz said some of those factors are beginning to stabilize in the DFW metro area.
Looking at recent data, Fritz said home sales in the Aledo ISD have been concentrated in the $300,000-plus range.
“So those home sales are still very strong, the housing market, that demand remains very robust,” Fritz said. “And this is driven mainly by demographics. An interesting point is that the bulk of millennials are now aging to 32 this year, which is also the median age for first-time homebuyers.
“Demand is also still high for homes priced above $500,000. And there are a significant number of those in Aledo ISD in the planned developments as well.”
Based on the above and additional factors, Fritz said the largest growth in the next five years will likely come from five developments.
“So, the big three are Walsh, Morningstar, and Parks of Aledo,” Fritz said. “In the first five years of the projection period, these three communities will contribute 50 percent of all the new single family housing occupancies that we project in the district combined. Walsh, Morningstar, and Parks of Aledo are projected to add about 2,800 new homes by fall of 2026.”
Fritz added that she put an asterisk there because things are changing rapidly taking the City of Aledo developers’ agreement with the Dean Ranch into consideration.
“So, throughout the latter part of the first five years we do also project that both Dean Ranch and Veale Ranch will begin development as well in the Aledo ISD portions,” Fritz said. “There are a lot of other smaller developments that continue to build out and are influential on your existing attendance zones. But these five will really be the heavy hitters in terms of numbers for the projections.”
There will also be new multi-family developments in the next five to 10 years that are taken into account in the projections, although statistically there are fewer enrolled students per unit than in single-family homes.
“Less than two percent of your current students live in multifamily units right now,” Fritz said. “We’re projecting 1,482 in the coming decade.”
For the next 10 years, “your projected new housing occupancies are 15,123 units,” Fritz said. “That’s 13,641 single family and 1,482 multifamily.”
Growth scenarios
Fritz concluded her presentation with student population projections for the next 10 years in the Aledo ISD. She said their study came up with three possible outcomes.
“We project a moderate growth scenario, which we say is the most likely or what we believe to be the most likely growth scenario for you all to consider for your long-range planning,” Fritz told the board.
But the company also developed a low-growth scenario that might happen if there was a slowdown in construction, and a high-growth scenario that might happen if, for example, a large employer moved into the area.
“So, the housing eventually is going to happen,” Fritz said. “The question is, how is that? What is that timing going to look like? Is it going to continue with the pace it’s happening now? How is it going to affect different markets at different price points? And that’s really the million-dollar question right now and that’s what everybody is trying to figure out.”
Under the moderate projection, Fritz said the AISD would see an additional 4,335 students enrolled in the next five years and an additional 5,861 in the next five years.
“So, by fall 2026 you guys can have an enrollment of 11,700 students is what we’re projecting and by fall 2031 a possible enrollment at 17,564,” Fritz said.
Pool rejoined the presentation to talk about attendance zones and to drill down on some of those numbers.
“So, if you want to work just from west to east and you’ll get the less heartburn starting the west and more heartburns going east,” Pool said. “The future growth will mainly affect the attendance zones currently for Walsh, McCall, and Vandagriff Elementary Schools.
The Walsh Elementary School attendance zone, for example, currently has 547 elementary-aged students. By 2026 that number is expected to be 1,317 and in 2031 it is expected to be 2,423.
“I don’t know who the principal is at Walsh but I’m gonna bet he or she does not want 2,423 students at the end of the projection period,” Pool said. The information “shows you where you’re headed, and sort of the magnitude of what we’re looking at now.”
Decisions ahead
While the bulk of the growth is in the elementary ages, those students eventually end up in middle school and high school, and inevitably those larger (and more expensive) facilities have to be considered.
“If you need to build a new high school, it’s going to take you two years to construct it and you’ve got to find the site,” Pool said. “You’ve got to pass the bond. You’ve got to get the committee going. You’ve got to have site work done. You’ve got to have design work done and prep and we’re talking a lot of time; it’s not one of those things we can decide, ‘Hey, we need a new high school next year’ and have boots on the ground.”
Pool recommended to the board that they concentrate on the next five years but plan for the next 10.
“If you concentrate on that 2031 you might not sleep tonight, but be aware if things kept going under the moderate growth scenario, that’s where we could be,” Pool said.
Based on projections, Walsh, McCall, and Coder Elementary Schools will reach capacity by the 2023-24 school year. The following year, Annetta and Stuard Elementary Schools join that list. And by 2026-27, the not-yet-opened McAnally Middle School will be at capacity.
Aledo High School will reach its capacity in the 2027-28 school year according to the moderate growth projections.
“The good news is there’s nothing that has to be done at the secondary level today,” Pool said. “But you will be having to consider what you want those high schools to look like in the future because we’re looking here at the possibility of two really well-utilized high schools by the projection period.
“But the elementaries are really I think, what’s going to be driving things in the near term.”
School board members briefly discussed bond election scenarios, water and wastewater availability in portions of the district, and how to minimize disruption in attendance zones going forward. Those discussions will continue with the school district and the community at future school board meetings.
“The idea that we may need not one, maybe not two, but maybe three elementary schools in the next five years, makes it challenging to do it in a piece,” said Aledo ISD Superintendent Dr. Susan Bohn. “You’re essentially doing it every one and a half years at max at the elementary level. So, I think that that’s a new challenge that we haven’t had before. We’ve been able to space them out. I think we’re coming into a situation where it’s a longer-term plan.”
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