Dr. Jerry McKibben’s message to the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board was clear – the student population will go down a bit in the next 5 years and the elementary buildings will see a slight uptick in about 10 years. But, growth in student numbers will be uneven within the district boundaries.
“You will see a little bit of growth, but the distribution of growth…will change dramatically,” Dr. McKibben told board members. “The distribution of population growth is usually different than distribution of student growth. They are not one-hundred percent correlated.”
Much of the Tuesday evening work session was spent with board member Suzanne Thomas questioning his projection of a fairly steady HSE student population over next 10 years. Thomas insisted her experience as a real estate agent shows her student numbers will grow, but McKibben responded that real estate transactions are only one of a number of factors he considers when making student population forecasts.
McKibben made clear at the outset that he is not not making projections, but rather providing a forecast. A forecast looks at likely outcomes, while a projection is generally defined as focusing on a desired outcome.
The tipping point for home mortgage interest rates is 5%, and McKibben says rates are now just above the 5% threshold. He expects that, and some coming demographic changes, will cool off the housing market over time.
Most school districts have seen a 3%-6% reduction in the student population statistics, but HSE Schools saw only a .7% reduction.
He did note a small increase in families choosing to send their children to a different school district, relating to the size of the high schools. Many find it difficult to make the sports teams or participate in other activities, such as band. Mount Vernon is the school corporation receiving the most students from HSE. The total number of students transferring out of HSE Schools has been at 900 per year, but has increased during to COVID period to 1,250.
McKibben says HSE suffers from what he describes as the “curse of the successful school district,” meaning students have high performance, attend college then generally do not return to their home area once college is done.
There was a lengthy discussion of how the student count will remain relatively steady, even the the general population of the district increasing, due to fewer households with children within the district boundaries.
When asked about how a recession might impact the forecast, McKibben says that would cause the student numbers to go down.
You can review the entire written report from Dr. McKibben at this link.