Enrollment in Pleasanton elementary schools is expected to drop slightly in the 2006 school year that starts next August in a declining trend that will affect all schools over the next 10 years.
By 2015, according to a new study by school demographer Tom Williams, total enrollment in Pleasanton public schools will decrease by 461 students to 14,057, compared to 14,518 who were registered as of Oct. 1, 2005 for the current school year.
Although enrollment has seen several dips in recent years in elementary schools, Williams does not forecast any rebounds-as happened this year-with the district’s nine elementary schools projected to shed 271 students by 2015 to a total of 5,783, compared to the 6,054 enrolled today.
“It’s clear that unless people moving into Pleasanton have children in the middle school and high school age groups, we will start losing enrollment in those schools, too,” said Rich Puppione, Senior Director of Pupil Services for the Pleasanton district. “This is the first long-range trend line that shows enrollment peeling off.”
Williams projects enrollment in grades kindergarten through fifth to drop by 14 students by Oct. 1, the date he uses to measure current-year figures, and then to steadily decrease in each of the next 10 years. The city’s three middle schools also will see an overall enrollment decline over the next decade, but in a seesaw fashion that will find enrollment both up and down when compared with the previous year. The projected peak is expected to total 3,528 sixth, seventh and eighth grade students in the 2008-09 school year. Current enrollment, again as of last Oct. 1, totals 3,490 students, and Williams shows it dropping by at least 152 students to 3,338 by Oct. 1, 2015.
High school enrollment, which currently stands at 4,974, will peak at 5,143 in the 2009-10 school year, dropping steadily after that to 4,936 in 2015, 38 students fewer than today’s enrollment.
Williams said the projected 461-student enrollment decline over the next 10 years is “slight” in a district that currently serves 14,518 students. However, the projected continuing downward trend is the first for Pleasanton schools that have consistently seen annual increases. Further, he noted that with Pleasanton nearing residential build-out because of a voter-mandated 29,000 housing unit cap approved in 1996, there are only 1,500 to 2,000 homes and apartments left to be built. Because of City Council and Planning Commission preferences that favor limiting most of any permitted new construction to smaller homes and apartments, with a majority in the so-called affordable-priced and senior citizen categories, the larger homes that generate large family occupancy won’t fill the gap of the decline in school-age children in current housing.
His survey shows that a higher percentage than ever before of older couples in Pleasanton, whose children have moved away to college and careers, are staying in their three, four and five bedroom homes as “empty nesters” because they want to continue living here. Because of Proposition 13, their property tax rates also makes it financially beneficial to keep their large homes, which continue to appreciate in value.
All this could change, Williams told the Pleasanton school board. A major drop in home prices could cause more seniors to “cash out” their homes and sell to younger couples. A future City Council could decide to allow more large-home construction. Or more affordable apartments and townhomes under consideration in various parts of the city could include two and three bedrooms that would be priced to appeal to young families with school-age children.
But probably not before 2015.
“The more likely scenario is for lower enrollments,” Williams stated in his report. “The expected condo and apartment complexes in the Hacienda Business Park and by the (new) West Pleasanton BART station may not be built until after 2015.”
“Meanwhile, the aging population trends in existing housing could cause a more rapidly declining kindergarten total, with subsequent impacts on the enrollment in other grades over time,” he explained. “Combining those possibilities could lead to an enrollment of as little as 13,100 in 2015. That would be a reduction by over 1,400 students from the current total.”
This is the sixth consecutive year that Williams and his firm, Enrollment Projection Consultants of San Mateo, have tracked Pleasanton’s school population trends. The firm specializes in these detailed studies on a contract basis for scores of school districts throughout the Bay Area and has a reputation for making accurate projections.
Williams’ projections show the largest enrollment declines will start in the coming school year at the elementary schools. Walnut Grove, with a current enrollment of 709, will drop to 677 students. The five fifth grades now at Walnut Grove that serve 185 students will be cut back to three-and-one-half fifth grades with only 113 students. Another historically large school, Donlon Elementary, will lose 25 students, dropping from 701 to 677. Both schools will operate at less than planning maximum capacities for the first time in years, with the district’s planning capacity at Donlon set at 750 students and at 698 for Walnut Grove. Those declines will continue at least through Oct. 1, 2009, where Williams’ specific projections end, with Donlon expected to serve 633 students for a total drop of 68 students, and Walnut Grove expected to serve 642, for a total drop of 67.
Why the decline?
Principal Bill Radulovich of Walnut Grove said some of his school’s enrollment decline can be attributed to out-of-neighborhood students who were sent there because their home schools were too crowded. A total of 22 came from Hearst Elementary, a number that will now be returning to Hearst, where boundary changes have realigned home school districts.
Walnut Grove also is the district’s only elementary school that offers a Discovery program, a special multi-class program started at Walnut Grove and open to others in the district if space is available.
Other schools also will see shifts in their enrollments, but for different reasons. Hearst Elementary, built to handle 600 students, now serves 748. Located at the center of high-growth family housing developments on the Bernal property, the school’s enrollment is expected to peak at 780 next year. Even with the completion of Greenbriar Homes and KB Home projects, the high enrollment will continue through 2009 unless redistricting plans by the school district stem the increases.
Another high-enrollment school, Valley View Elementary, which also has a district-“planning capacity” of 600 students, now serves 803 and could continue adding students to reach a projected peak of 826 in 2008. Besides serving many students from the Ruby Hill neighborhood, Valley View also is home to the district’s popular and only dual-emersion foreign language program available to any student in Pleasanton from kindergarten through fifth grade.
“Planning capacity differs from the interim operating capacity at each school because some sites may have portables on top of former playground areas or parking lots while other schools may have capacity to handle additional classrooms,” Williams said.
Puppione said he completed school assignments for the district’s 14,614 students projected to attend Pleasanton schools in the coming year, including approving 400 requests by students to attend a school outside of their home school boundary.
“Parents and their students seek different schools for a variety of reasons ranging from after-school child care locations, car pooling arrangements, or because the parents went to that particular school,” he said. “We’re fairly liberal with those requests as long as people get them in this month. After February, we’ve made our classroom space and teaching assignments and it’s difficult to accommodate any more requests.”
