Center Grove enrollment could reach over 14,000 by 2049

Leaders at Center Grove schools are planning to construct a seventh elementary school within the next five years amid sustained population growth.

Center Grove Community School Corporation officials aren’t just planning for the next five or ten years, though, they’re looking at what the school district will look like in the year 2100.

The school district’s student enrollment has grown by almost 25% in the last decade, from 7,584 students at the start of the 2012-13 school year to 9,434 last fall, compared to an increase of just 659 students from 2001 to 2012, according to school district documents.

School officials paid education planning organization Cooperative Strategies $20,000 to complete enrollment projections for the school district through the end of the century. The projections show the school district will peak at an estimated 14,398 students in 2049. Currently empty land in the western and southern parts of White River Township near Interstate 69 is expected to continue to be developed into residential neighborhoods, assistant superintendent Jason Taylor said.

After the peak, enrollment is expected to decrease until 2077 with an estimated 11,568 students, where it could stay around that level through 2100. As the number of new developments slows with less land available in the second half of the century, it will result in an aging population and fewer families with young children moving in, he said.

With the projections, school officials are now able to plan for renovations and new buildings decades in advance.

Elementary schools

The past decade of growth resulted in a new elementary school and several expansions of current school buildings.

Walnut Grove Elementary School, Center Grove’s sixth elementary school, opened in 2019 with room for 800 students. The $23.1 million school accommodates new housing developments and students in the southern end of White River Township near Bargersville. With six elementary schools, Center Grove administrators have been able to manage the current enrollment of 4,335 students, with an average of 723 students in each school.

In 2020, Center Grove school board members have approved $21.1 million in projects adding four new classrooms to both Sugar Grove Elementary School and Pleasant Grove Elementary School. At Pleasant Grove, upgrades also included new cabinetry, furniture, paint, carpet, ceilings and lighting, according to school district documents.

But work isn’t done at Sugar Grove. Workers plan to add a new gymnasium, expand the cafeteria and renovate classrooms in 2025 as part of a $10.6 million project board members approved in March of last year, Taylor said.

Even with the expansions and the addition of Walnut Grove, school district leaders project they’ll need a seventh elementary school by the start of the 2028-29 school year. As with the other recent elementary school projects, the goal is to pay for the construction of the new building after administrators finish paying off bonds from other projects so the property tax rate in the school district can remain level, Taylor said.

School district leaders look at two different models of enrollment projections to make decisions, including a conservative model that maintains steady population growth and an aggressive model where there is an additional student above the average for every four homes in the district. So far, the student population has skewed more toward the aggressive model, he said.

“The two models show how much space we have before we develop trigger points (for new schools) and the elementary school will have a trigger point of 4,720 students in 2028-29,” Taylor said.

Under the aggressive model, portable classrooms would be needed starting in 2026 to help elementary schools that are overcapacity until the next school opens, he said.

School officials are considering multiple plots of land between Honey Creek Road and State Road 135, but can’t reveal the exact locations of the plots, he said.

Once the Center Grove school board approves a land purchase, the district will still have two to three years before construction can start. The process will include working with architects, getting zoning approval and gathering bids for construction, Taylor said.

School leaders will need to consider additional elementary schools in the 2030s and 2040s as the student population reaches a crescendo. An eighth elementary school is a near certainty if growth continues, while a ninth one would be a tossup. Administrators in the future would need to be careful not to build a ninth elementary school that would sit vacant decades later when school enrollment is expected to decline, he said.

“An eighth school is needed not just for classrooms, but as we grow more towards I-69, we may need a school in that direction,” Taylor said.

Middle schools

Center Grove officials considered a third middle school as recently as two years ago, but decided against it because of the cost and the chances it wouldn’t be needed in the future, Taylor said.

“It would be more fiscally responsible to expand the two middle schools rather than a third we might not need in 30 years,” he said.

School district officials are spending $31.8 million on renovation and expansion projects for both Middle School Central and Middle School North. As with the elementary school project, the middle school construction work won’t raise the property tax rate. At Middle School North, construction crews will add a band room, renovate the orchestra room, renovate the music room, expand the cafeteria and add new furniture, according to school district documents.

Most of the new rooms, including all additional middle school classrooms, will be at Middle School Central, near where most of the growth is planned. Center Grove officials estimate there will be 2,296 homes from planned subdivisions, mostly concentrated on the southern end of White River Township. Middle School Central renovations will include 16 new classrooms, according to the documents.

Work on both schools started last year and should be complete by the end of the fall semester, Taylor said.

Center Grove originally had one middle school, but created a second one, Middle School North, in 2003. The existing structure changed names from Center Grove Middle School to Middle School Central.

At its maximum, there will likely be 3,416 students at the two middle schools, more than the current combined capacity of 3,000 students, according to school documents.

But future measures to increase capacity within the existing buildings will cost less than building a third middle school. Middle schools can often cost three or four times the amount of an elementary school because of the additional space needed to accommodate two to three times as many students as an elementary school. A new building would also require an additional school administrative team and athletic fields, which elementary schools don’t have, Taylor said.

Center Grove High School

There has always been one Center Grove High School, and there likely always will be, Taylor said.

The building has a capacity of about 3,650 students, which it won’t surpass until 2030, according to aggressive projection, and 2032, according to a conservative one. Peak student enrollment will reach an estimated 4,366 students, according to school documents.

School leaders have taken numerous steps to increase capacity in the building, negating the need for a second building.

In 2018, school officials approved a $45 million project that created a new natatorium with an Olympic-sized pool and added 11 classrooms and a large group space. The natatorium opened in 2021, and the classrooms were completed the following year. Another $19.8 million project, approved in March, will add 18 new classrooms, and is set for completion in 2025, Taylor said.

Center Grove schools will probably need new classrooms within the next decade as the student population grows, but the goal is to weather the middle of the century without building a second high school that would be even more costly and wouldn’t be needed afterward, he said.

“The high school might need an additional wing of classrooms as soon as 2032,” Taylor said. “We are planning ahead for those. We don’t like to use portables, but we have to at times. We don’t want to open an empty building.”