(Geronimo) — The Navarro ISD is doing its part to create some much-needed elbow room at its elementary school. Interim Superintendent Dee Carter says the results of an updated demographic study have finally been released to the district. She says those results show a spike in the number of students that will be attending the local campus this upcoming school year.
“It’s pretty stunning when you look at the numbers. We are well over 700 students at the elementary school now which serves grades pre-kindergarten through third grade currently. But well over 700 students and the demographics study projects that we may go to 855 children in grades pre-k through 3 for next year. We can not accommodate 855 children in that building. This year, we purchased and moved in two portable buildings which added four classrooms. So we added four classrooms at the elementary and we are more than full at that campus still and of course, the common spaces really get stressed as well even if we could bring in more portables to that building — the cafeteria, the gym (etc.),” said Carter.
Although she began anticipating these results a month ago with the district’s leadership team, Carter says these latest numbers only cemented a plan to move the entire third-grade class over to its intermediate campus.
“By moving third grade, it will stress out the Intermediate School some but that campus was built for 700 to 750 students and it can accommodate in the common areas more students, more easily than the elementary school can. So, at this time, we are moving forward with that. Now, we have a lot of things to look at. How are we going to accommodate for all the specials that children participate in — art, music, PE, technology, library — all of those things. We have staffing issues that we will be studying as well but our intention right now is to move forward with that move,” said Carter.
Carter says the results were released only a few days before members of the Navarro ISD Board of Trustees met for their regular meeting on Monday. She says apart from the fact that they don’t want almost 900 children at the elementary campus, the board realized that there was also no real available land space to place portables at that campus in order to address this anticipated enrollment.
Over at the intermediate campus, however, Carter says portables can be used and will be necessary.
“There are currently about six classrooms that can be used at the Intermediate School but fourth grade is going to grow some so we may need one or two classrooms for fourth grade so we are going to need some additional classrooms at Intermediate as well,” said Carter.
This shifting of students, however, is expected to only be for a few years. Carter says the hope is that the solution will come with the construction of the new voter-approved high school just south of Link Road.
“When the new high school is finished in two years if all goes well with the supply chain and the ability of the contractor to be able to hire enough people to build it, it should be a two-year project. When that high school is completed, then the current high school becomes a middle school and sixth grade will move out of the Intermediate school. So, we are hopefully, just looking at a two-year pressure situation for the Intermediate school,” said Carter.
Carter says while it has been a slow start, the district is zoning in on that high school to help alleviate a good portion of these growing pains.
“It’s been a slow process because it took a while to get the real estate and all of the plans drawn to that particular site and then all of the permits and studies for TxDOT and the zoning approvals, it just takes a long time and so we are very much hopeful that there will be shovels in the ground at the first of August and that there will be an August complete date in 2025,” said Carter. “So we’ve got two years and five months.”
The construction of a new high school is just one component of preparing for future growth. Carter says while things might appear to be easing up a bit in regard to home sales, studies still indicate that the Navarro ISD is on its way to doubling in size.
“Our demographer did show us that while there is still a lot of housing starts happening, the closings have slowed down a little and that is due to the fact that interest rates have risen and that makes a difference for a lot of people as they look at their monthly mortgage costs. So, that has slowed things down a little bit. Supply chain issues have slowed things down a little bit for the contractor as well. While we still see lots and lots of activity and we expect to see an approximately 10 percent growth in the district each year for the next 10 years and that doesn’t sound like a whole lot until you add that up but you realize what it does over those years. It’s very likely that this school district will have over 5,000 students within 10 years. Currently, we are at about 2,200,” said Carter. What does that mean? It means the school district will need twice the number of school buildings that it currently has.”
A link to view the full report of the 2023 Navarro ISD Demographic Study Findings is now available on the district’s website at nisd.us. District officials encourage everyone to check out the report as they begin to plan accordingly.
