Declining Enrollment Slows Construction Plans

By MARILYN BROWN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 31, 2007

TAMPA - As student enrollment shrinks, so do building plans for Hillsborough County schools.

For 2008, the addition of 100 classrooms at four high schools and one middle school has been halted. Also off the construction list is a high school for New Tampa and three elementary schools - one each in New Tampa, northeast Hillsborough and Thonotosassa.

Still, four new elementary schools open Aug. 20, and in the next four years, the district projects building an additional six elementary, two middle and two high schools.

Then, wham.

Those could be the last high schools for another two decades, said Cathy Valdes, the district's chief facilities officer. No new schools are planned to open during the 2011-2012 year.

Hillsborough, which had been growing by up to 6,000 students and 12 new schools each year for a decade, grew by just 316 students in 2006-07. Projections for student enrollment eight weeks into the 2006-2007 year - in October, the first measure of the new school year - are about the same as last year's enrollment at 191,218 students.

The district's enrollment likely will be nearly flat until 2010-2011 at the earliest, then a modest increase is expected, Jim Hosler, demographic consultant for the school district, said at a school board workshop Monday.

"We're no longer seen as a preferred location," Hosler said. "We're not inexpensive or predictable anymore."

Building projections are part of a five-year plan that will be sent to local planning agencies for review, with a final vote by the school board scheduled Sept. 18.

Growth picking up even modestly is dependent on a turnaround in the local economy, coupled with an increase in the birth rate five to seven years before, Hosler said.

Hosler was hired as a consultant after the district and the state failed to see the state's rampant growth slam to a halt. Instead of adding more than 50,000 students, the state grew by just 477. Some districts lost thousands.

More schools are still needed to comply with the state's class size amendment, which has been phased in but caps the size of each individual classroom in 2008, Valdes said. Growth in south and northwest Hillsborough has continued. About 1,200 portable classrooms are also still in use.

"It's tough to project right now," Hosler said, although he said his estimates for 2007-08 are within 100 students of what the state estimated last week.

Hosler said he looked at Hispanic immigration, which is down across the country, as well as a drop in area construction jobs and a dip in local birth rates. Rising costs of property and insurance make Florida much like other areas once popular for families, such as Portland and San Diego, he said. They lost students as the cost of living increased. The uncertainty of weather, including four hurricanes in 2004, were also considered, he said.

The district projects that revenue of $314.3 million for construction, including major renovations and remodeling, will now match construction needs, Valdes said. That is a major turnaround from earlier estimates of hundreds of millions worth of unfunded projects that the district said would be needed.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.