There have been continuous discussions of school prediction where new housing development is not reflecting the school overcrowding issue. Here I am sharing some numbers from 15 housing developments. We have the projected student numbers and the real enrollment in 2018,2019 and 2020. The real enrollment is as high as 6 times as projected for High School, 4.66 times for Middle School and 3.61 times for Elementary School. Why is there such a disconnect? Here are some of my thoughts.
- The first year projection (New Construction Yield for Howard County Council terminology) on new housing development does not tell the whole story.
- One example, when the house permit is approved in the first year and the house is sold on the second year, it will be counted as resale. For the general public, this should be counted as new development enrollment.
- We should look at accumulated enrollment number over the years on new development parcel until it is done. There is a huge latency and discrepancy while only considering the new student number at the first year.
- I propose that the impact number (New Construction Yield) should use a different formula:
- total enrolled students after all houses are sold divided by total house number
- it could be further divided by total year of development carefully if we need consider yearly yield.
- I am looking forward to the new number based on this formula for New Construction Yield.
- After all houses are sold, there will be continuous resale. Then we can make a simple assumption that those resale will follow the general housing market.
What is your thought? Please share it with me at chao_wu@hcpss.org. Thanks a lot for helping me understand this issue better. Together we hope we can get this right.
The ration between Real Enrollment over New Construction Yield
The real enrollment
The New Construction Yield:
The data is attached here for your reference. I am very grateful that BOE board member VicKy Cutroneo put many efforts on this and shared this data with me.