Demographer: Bastrop's housing pipeline keeps enrollment growth on track; district forecasts steady kindergarten classes

Rocky Gardner, the district demographer, walked the board through housing, starts and enrollment yield metrics the district uses to forecast student enrollment.

Gardner said Bastrop added about 1,900 students in the last five years and that district housing activity remains robust despite a regional slowdown in starts. He said the district tracked about 5,000 vacant developed lots (VDL) and an inventory of roughly 340 finished-but-vacant homes, with an additional pipeline of future multifamily and single-family developments that could yield significant enrollment in later years.

Gardner provided yields for different product types (for example, a 0.25 yield in some new developments and higher yields in others such as 0.55 to 0.7 in certain neighborhoods) and forecast next year's kindergarten class at about 930 students. He said these forecasts inform staffing, campus openings and boundary adjustments, and reminded trustees that October snapshot and certified values will be important inputs for final budget and staffing decisions.

Board members asked about on-campus staffing thresholds (for example, when a school merits a second assistant principal) and how the district will adapt if a campus grows faster than projected. Staff described standard processes for adding FTEs midyear and using allotment formulas and PEIMS data to make adjustments.