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Projected Enrollments from 2007 to 2017 Pleasanton Unified School District As was stated in our past reports, extrapolations of (1) recent student population trends and (2) the current enrollment distribution through the grades are the primary reasons for these grade level differences. The district's secondary-school population rose significantly in recent years as an enrollment "bubble" both graduated upward through the grades and increased in the process. That bubble is now mainly in the high school grades, with the "peak" in twelfth grade. There are more than 1,300 students in twelfth, which is the most in any single grade in district history. By contrast, the total in twelfth had been among the smallest in every year for as far back as data is available. The next three largest current amounts are in the remaining high school grades, with each having more than 1,240 students. The middle school grades contain between 1,160 and 1,210 students (i.e., the "tail" of the bubble). All of the elementary grade totals are under 1,100 because the bubble has graduated past that level. (The reverse was true a decade ago, when the largest single-grade amounts were in the elementary grades, followed by the middle school grades.) While the enrollment in every student body class should continue to rise as each class graduates upward, these lower amounts now in K-5 are unlikely to grow sufficiently to recreate the current middle school total between 2009 and 2012. Similarly, the smaller totals now in 6-8 probably will not increase enough to match the current high school total, especially for next year. Only the elementary level is not impacted by the passing of this bubble, so that has a much greater potential for modest growths Although this comparison of the enrollments by grade is an oversimplification of all of the factors that go into these projections, it does provide a quick insight into why the shifts vary between grade levels. District-Wide ProjLected Enrollments: From 2012 to 2017 Enrollment projections more than five years into the future always have a large and increasing potential range of deviation. Unforeseeable socio-economic changes can have a dramatic impact over that amount of time. No one in 1995 had heard of the "dot-com boom" that was about to start, and no one of consequence in 1999 was projecting the extent of the "dot-com bust" that occurred in 2000. Those events had real enrollment impacts. And no one knows how much the birth counts will change in the near future, which corresponds to the kindergarten populations starting in 2012. What we do feel confident in saying, nonetheless, is that the enrollment total is unlikely to shift dramatically in the latter half of the projection period, once the bubble is gone. Your community may be entering a period of student population equilibrium coming from the current mix of younger and middle-aged families, newer and older homes, and modest and higher income neighborhoods. The birth data discussed later in this report supports this possibility, with the aging of ongoing families (who tend to have fewer births over time) being virtually offset, in terms of recent birth counts, by the young families entering the community via new and resold housing. The one minor shift that could reduce the long-range kindergarten numbers will be a reduction in the number of new detached homes expected to be built (as is discussed later in this report). Our best estimate is thus that the total enrollment will decline by a couple of hundred between 2012 and 2017. The specific forecast number shown in Table 1 is to be down by 201 students over ten years, to a total of 14,601, but being plus or minus by 900 from that is a real possibility that far into the future. With such a wide potential range, we recommend focusing your planning on the projections for the next four or five years and using the long-range estimates solely for "what if" facility considerations. e See Appendix Al for the current (and projected) totals by grade and see Appendix 63 for the by-grade counts since 1993 that are available from the State. The district total was so much lower prior to 1993, compared to the current and recent totals, that we feel safe in assuming that 1,300 had never occurred before in any grade. Enrollment Projection Consultants Page 4