By Brian Knox | Wise County Messenger

With student growth forecasted to be between 2 and 3.5 percent in the next 10 years, Decatur ISD could see enrollment top 4,000 students in four years and nearly 4,800 students in a decade.

Current enrollment is around 3,650.

The school board Monday heard a demographic report from Bob Templeton with Zonda Education that included a look at enrollment projections for each campus and an overview of housing developments in the district.

Templeton explained the district had been seeing consistent growth over the past few years before a slight pandemic caused dip of 31 students last year.

“That’s consistent with what we saw across the state,” Templeton said.

This year enrollment grew at 6.3 percent in what he called “a very good bounce back.”

Looking at housing developments in the district, Templeton said around 140 lots are “on the ground” and ready for home builders to begin construction with another 1,400 future lots in various levels of planning.

“Some of these are going to be several years down the road before they come into play, but we are starting to see a pickup in future development because the DFW market is expanding so much, and it is pushing farther out in the rural area around the region,” he said.

Using what he called “conservative” estimates, DISD is projected to grow around 70 to 85 students per year in the next couple of years based on 100 to 150 new homes per year coming online, and in years three through 10, the enrollment projections increase to around 130 students per year as more homes are expected to be built.

That would mean the district would need to plan on seeing enrollment increase to around 4,200 to 4,600 students in five to eight years.

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