Study: Tide could turn on Cedar Rapids school enrollment

CEDAR RAPIDS — As the Cedar Rapids Community School District pursues a $220 million facility plan to fund improvements to middle and high schools, an enrollment analysis — commissioned by the district — shows years of declining student enrollment has the potential to stabilize and begin increasing over the next five years.

The study forecasts an increase of 303 students in the district for a total of about 14,500 students by the 2027-28 school year, according to the analysis done in March by RSP & Associates, which assists school districts in long-range planning.

This, however, is thousands of students below the district’s highest enrollment 20 years ago during the 2002-03 school year, when 17,216 students were enrolled. Enrollment steadily has declined since then, with a large dip during the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment rebounded from 13,865 during the 2021-22 school year to 14,260 during the 2022-23 school year.

The projected enrollment over the next five years in the district would be a capacity and utilization of up to 78 percent in elementary schools, 66 percent in middle schools and 83 percent in high schools — leaving unoccupied space costing the district money it doesn’t have.

The $220 million bond issue, if it appears on the Nov. 7 ballot and is approved by district voters, would help fund a facility plan that ultimately would reduce the number of middle schools from its existing six. This would create a stronger feeder system for students in K-12, ensuring students stay grouped together as they move from elementary to middle to high school.

School leaders have said they believe the plan would provide more equitable services to all students while reducing the district’s operational and maintenance costs.

The goal of the study is to help the school board, administration and public understand how to make the best decision for students at the classroom level, according to board documents.

RSP & Associates also has done enrollment projection studies for the College Community and Clear Creek Amana Community school districts in the last few years.

CRCSD Growth Areas Map by Gazetteonline on Scribd

Decades of declining enrollment

The enrollment change in the community is influenced by birthrate, demographics, types of development and housing affordability, according to the study.

A contributor to the decline in enrollment in the district is a decline in birthrates in Linn County, resulting in smaller kindergarten classes each year, according to the study. If the decline continues to decrease to fewer than 2,600 births a year, it will become a challenge to enroll more than 1,100 kindergarten students.

Over the past three years, Cedar Rapids schools’ kindergarten classes have been below 1,200 students. Moving forward, kindergarten classes in the district are estimated to be between 1,025 and 1,300 students.

Future kindergarten classes appear to have the potential to be larger than previous kindergarten classes over the last few years. Graduating senior classes, though, tend to be smaller than the incoming kindergarten class.

The district also has had more students open enroll to schools out of the district than it sees from other schools into the district:

A large majority of these students enrolling elsewhere went to neighboring College Community and Linn-Mar school districts.

Cedar Rapids Virtual Academy

The main contributor to enrollment increasing during the 2021-22 school year was from students leaving Cedar Rapids Virtual Academy — the district’s online learning school — to re-enroll for in-person learning.

Almost 400 students returned to in-person learning two years ago, the first time the district saw growth in five years. Another 475 students returned to brick-and-mortar schools last year.

Housing growth in Cedar Rapids

Almost 10,000 total potential housing units could be added within the district in the next 10 years, with most of this growth located on the western side of Cedar Rapids and in Hiawatha.

Tracking the types of development is important in understanding how many students it might bring in to the district. However, increasing construction costs and supply chain challenges impact the potential of new development and where projects will occur.

Single-family residential units — which are being developed at a higher rate than multifamily units — have the highest chance to have school-aged students. In 2022 in the district, there were 82 single family units built and 20 multifamily units built.

The facilities plan

The $220 bond referendum would fund the district’s purchase of land for and the construction of a 1,200-student middle school. School officials have not yet disclosed possible locations for this school, although it likely will be on the northeast side.

It also would fund new turf fields and career and technical education classroom additions at Kennedy, Jefferson and Washington high schools.

Kennedy High’s cafeteria and kitchen and Metro High School’s gymnasium would be updated under this plan.

Franklin Middle School would be renovated and turned into an 800-student school for seventh- and eighth-graders. Sixth-graders in the Franklin school boundary would attend McKinley, which would be converted into a school for 400 sixth-graders.

Wilson, Roosevelt and Harding middle schools would be closed under the initial plan. The idea is that developers could repurpose these buildings into some other use.

A second $225 million bond referendum — proposed to be taken to voters in 2029 — would address the remaining middle schools.

CRCSD Student Density Map by Gazetteonline on Scribd

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