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MGSD prepares for boom in student population

Melinda Skutnick | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | May 2, 2008

Just three years after building a new intermediate school, the Mooresville Graded School District continues to combat the growing student population.

“We are building,” said MGSD Director of Operations Stephen Mauney. “We will have three new schools on line over the next year and a half and that’s going to do a great deal to meet the needs of our growing student population.”

Currently, MGSD’s total capacity is 7,610 students, and no school is operating above capacity levels. Total MGSD capacity will increase to 10,096 following:

+ The opening of the district’s new elementary school on Rocky River Road in fall 2009;
+ Renovations to the current MIS, which will become a new Mooresville Middle School in fall 2009;
+ Renovations to the current Mooresville Middle School, which will accommodate many Mooresville High School students also beginning fall 2009; and
+ The projected May 20 opening of a new Mooresville Intermediate School.

Mooresville Intermediate School students — grades three through six — will move into the new building off N.C. Highway 3 for the 2008-09 school year.

Crunching numbers
Using a 5 percent enrollment growth projection — an average based on the growth rate since 2002 — Mauney created a 10-year analysis of where the district will stand each school year through 2017-18 with their facilities and student enrollment.

If Mauney’s projections hold true or enrollment in MGSD rises above 5 percent, the district’s facilities will overflow with students in seven to eight years.

“I think that there has been good planning on the part of the administration within the school district to account for the population growth trends,” he added. “And that has put us in good shape facility-wise at the present time.”

Moving third-graders
MGSD is making another critical move to help ease capacity constraints: Moving third-grade students back to the elementary school level.

At the onset of the 2005-06 school year, third-graders were relocated to the intermediate school level.

But beginning in the 2009-10 school year — coinciding with the opening of the new elementary school — third-graders in MGSD will attend school with kindergarten through second-grade students.

Based on Mauney’s projections, elementary schools will adequately handle a 5 percent growth each year until 2015-16, when a new facility would be needed. However, with the third-grade move, MGSD may have additional years before further elementary school construction becomes necessary.

“Not only is that best for (the third-graders) developmentally, but it’s also a very good move for us, facility-wise,” said Mauney.

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