Demographer to Chandler Schools: Many factors diminish populations

By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

There are many reasons why the Chandler Unified School District should prepare for at least slightly, slowly declining enrollment.

That’s one conclusion presented to the CUSD Governing Board Oct. 23 by Rick Bramer and Don Graves of Applied Economics. The consultants, for the second time in about 14 months, deluged the board with dozens of statistics about population trends and other things that affect public-school enrollment.

This chart shows how Chandler Unified School District land has been developed for residential construction over the past 10 years. Applied Economics consultants, speaking at a CUSD Governing Board work session Oct. 23. said more expensive and fewer homes will be built within the district boundaries over the next 10 years, meaning the number of K-8 students living in the district will likely …

Courtesy of Applied Economics

“It’s been a growth district for so long that people forget that growth doesn’t go on forever,” Bramer said. “And when you run out of land, growth slows, and the population starts to age. And then all K-12 school-age populations decrease. The characteristics of that population tell us more about how much and how fast that decrease is going to be.”

Bramer said CUSD added 16,700 students, using 40-day head counts, from 2000 to 2009 and another 7,300 between 2010 and 2019.

Bramer made one main point about the ESAs, or private education “vouchers.” He said that while the impact of vouchers to CUSD has been about 500 students per year for 2022-23 and 2023-24, that doesn’t mean the district would likely see a 500-student voucher exodus in each of the years ahead.

Not only are vouchers a new program with appeal to parents who make the switch once, Bramer said, but with birth rates and the cost of homes in the East Valley affecting the number of school-age children in residence, those students simply don’t live in the area anymore.

“COVID hit, and the enrollment dropped for nearly all schools in 2020-21, but in your (CUSD’s) case, those 1,800 students simply didn’t come back,” Bramer said. “In a lot of the lower-income districts I work with, there was a big bounceback after that initial enrollment hit. You guys just didn’t see that.”

Bramer said that contributed to a five-year drop in CUSD enrollment of about 4,300 students — sizable, even for a district that regularly states it has about 43,000 students.

Bramer was quick to point out there are many factors affecting CUSD’s enrollment and family characteristics besides COVID. These include the cost of living, birth rates, the vouchers and more.

“Any time you see a big, big change, it’s usually got multiple causes — all impacting one side of the equation,” Bramer said.

Graves pointed out, in talking about housing permits pulled, the estimated 12,000 homes to be built in the district within the next 10 years not only will be expensive, especially for expanding families, but will be fewer in number than the amount of homes built in the last 10 years.

After Graves presented some information about large planned communities along the eastern edge of CUSD’s boundaries, Superintendent Frank Narducci said the district owns about nine acres of undeveloped land in total, and in its current lack of capacity and real-estate prices, it would be tough for CUSD to acquire more land now.

Narducci said he’s in regular conversation with both neighboring school district leaders and developers as to how many school-age children have moved into or are likely to move into newly built homes.

Board member Joel Wirth suggested the district should move toward getting at least one elementary school in the area.

“I saw this happen about five years ago,” said Wirth, who didn’t run for reelection and will leave the board in January. “We had no marketing program. Huge mistake. I don’t want to see that again. I think we should get ahead of this curve. We have a lot of smart people in this room who can figure out what should be out there, K-6, 7-8, whatever. To sit here and not do anything, it just feels that way.”

We invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this topic. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Email Jason W. Brooks at jbrooks@iniusa.org.

Jason W. Brooks
News Editor | Chandler Independent

Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.

Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.

Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.

Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.

Community: He supports animal shelters.