By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT — An enrollment study that will help shape the school system’s budget and size of its schools — including a new Long Lots Elementary School — tells officials to expect more students.

Overall enrollment is expected to increase by 5 percent over the next five years before leveling off at about 5,700 students by 2030, the study concludes.

“People move here for the schools,” Board of Education Chairwoman Lee Goldstein said at this week’s meeting “We see that here.”

After a couple of years of underestimating the district’s student population, Goldstein said this year there is a concerted effort to get it right.

So much so that the district is getting two opinions, one from the SLAM Collaborative, which was presented to the school board this week.

A second study by the New England School Development Council, or NESDEC, has yet to be presented.

Enrollment influencing budget, building plans

Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice told the board the enrollment projections come as district officials begin to formulate a 2023-24 budget, and work to plug gaps in the current budget caused by underestimating the number of teachers needed.

The school year started this fall with 88 more students than projected, forcing the district to hire six additional teachers.

Michael Zuba, a certified professional planner with SLAM, told the board he is seeing some enrollment increases where school officials have not seen them in the past.

“Not every [district] is growing the same way you are,” Zuba told the board.

Actual 2022-23 enrollment is higher than all three projections models presented to the board last year.

The numbers of middle and high school schools were significantly higher than anticipated.

The elementary enrollment was 36 students higher than the highest projection, with kindergarten driving the delta at 39 unexpected students.

More kindergartners, more births, more home sales

Kindergarten enrollment was higher than projected at all schools except King’s Highway. Long Lots led the pack with 18 additional students, followed by Saugatuck with 13 additional students.

“Births are on the rise,” said Zuba.

Through September of this year, there have been 166 births in town, the highest since 2005.

In addition, people are moving into Westport in certain hot spots.

There was a significant jump in house sales in 2020 and 2021, with sales equaling peak seen in the mid-2000s prior to the Great Recession, according to the report.

The greatest number of recent home sales was near Compo Cove, Route 1 and the neighborhoods around Compo Road and Main Street. There was also a 20 percent uptick in sales in the Coleytown district in 2022 so far.

Most new residents are bringing school-aged children to town.

Long Lots Elementary School, which officials plan to replace, is projected to have the greatest future change, with enrollment peaking at 680 by 2028.

The SLAM projections show middle school enrollment bottomed out in this school year and that moderate growth is projected over the next decade, peaking at 1,460 students in 2029-30.

The enrollment gap between the two middle schools, however, remains high. This year, Bedford has 730 students, while Coleytown Middle has 465.

At Staples High School, enrollment is still declining, but not as sharply as expected thanks to new students moving to town. In 2017, the high school had 1,905 students. This fall, there were 1,694, about the same as last year when 66 fewer students were projected.

Redistricting an option

School board member Robert Harrington called the projected enrollment increase a challenge, particularly when it comes to size imbalances, but also a good sign for the town.

“Our schools are becoming more popular,” Harrington said. ”It’s a really positive energy and dynamic structurally.”

Harrington said addressing size imbalances might force the district to consider redistricting, however unpopular it might be.

Representative Town Meeting Education Committee Chairwoman Lauren Karpf, watching the presentation from the audience, agreed redistricting is needed.

“It is getting harder and harder to approve the budget when the schools aren’t balanced and there is a lack of efficiencies,” said Karpf, adding that redistricting would have an impact on her own children.

As it is, Karpf said some students at Long Lots each lunch mid-morning because they cannot all fit in the cafeteria and face the prospect of using portable classrooms.

“This is not years away,” she added. “It’s a discussion that needs to be pushed up in terms of a priority.”

Board Vice Chairwoman Liz Heyer wondered about the capacity for each school and how the district intends to accommodate a projected 660 Long Lots students in a school currently being designed for fewer students, not more.

“Where are all these students going to go?” Heyer said.

 Of the three potential projection models SLAM offered, Zuba said the one in the middle reflects the most likely trajectory for future enrollment.

Still, pandemic-influenced drivers bear watching, Zuba warned.

“Should housing market activity continue for next several years at the elevated levels, the high projection model may prove more accurate in the long-term,” he said.

Freelance writer Linda Conner Lambeck, a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications, is a member of the Education Writers Association.