District 196 Enrollment: Short-Term Decrease, Long-Term Rebound Projected

After riding out a 5-7 percent enrollment decline in the last decade, School District 196 is in for smoother sailing in the next 10 years, a consultant told school board members last month.

Hazel Reinhardt, a consultant hired by district officials to study population fluctuations in the district, projected that schools may see shrinking enrollment over the next five years. But that decrease will likely be followed by a rebound as members of Generation Y—the so-called Millenials—begin to have children of their own, Reinhardt said.

She attributed the small fluctuations over the next decade to natural population cycles, and described the district's population as stable—which is good news for the district.

In the 2003-04 school year, District 196 had a total enrollment of 27,509 students. By the 2012-13 school year, however, that number had fallen to 25,918. The decrease is due largely to the graying demographics in Dakota County, district officials have said.

District 196 Total Enrollment 2003-2013

Reinhardt projects enrollment will continue to fall incrementally until bottoming out in 2018-19. Several prediction models showed a total enrollment between 25,264 and 25,488 students in those years.

But by 2022-23, Reinhardt's projections show a rebound, with the districtwide student population during that school year estimated to be between 25,804 and 26,185 students. Numbers will continue to increase in later years, Reinhardt said, until another projected peak in 2040.

"The next five to 10 years will not be like the past five or 10 years," Reinhardt said. "There are really significant shifts ... occurring, and the big one is the aging of the population."

But that aging has been offset by a steady inflow of new students who were born outside the district, Reinhardt said. The district, she added, does a remarkably good job of retaining its students.

District 196 has a capture rate—the percentage of students living in the district who attend district schools—of approximately 88 percent. That rate is "unheard" of in the metro area, Reinhardt said.