Here’s how much and where growth is occurring for Horry Schools now and in future
Horry County Schools is continuing to see an increased student population and district officials expect to welcome more than 3,400 additional students during the next five years.
The 2019-20 enrollment report, which compiles average daily attendance during the first 45 days of the school year, shows the district added 675 students total from last year, which represents about 1.5 percent growth.
Most of that growth came from middle school grades, while K-5 enrollment increased by just 25 students. Elementary school enrollment declined last year for the first time since at least 1988, which is as far back as the district has compiled data.
The district has grown by 3,378, or about 8.4 percent, during the past five years, and projections based on local birth and migration data suggest an additional 8 percent growth during the next five years, bringing total enrollment above 47,000 students during the 2024-25 school year.
The Carolina Forest attendance area, which added 332 students this year, is already the largest attendance area by a wide margin, and projections show the area could account for nearly 25 percent of the entire district’s enrollment by 2024.
The St. James and North Myrtle Beach attendance areas are also slated for large growth during the next five years, while the Aynor and Green Sea Floyds attendance area are projected to see slight decreases.
Modular classrooms
While enrollment continues to grow, the school district’s construction budget has tightened, and modular classrooms are increasingly being installed at schools where the number of students have surpassed the building’s capacity.
Modular classrooms are movable, often come in groups of at least twos, and detached from the primary school building on each campus. They’re connected to the building by a covered walkway and otherwise look and operate the same as typical classrooms.
The district is currently using 64 of these classrooms at 11 different schools this year, and staff is requesting eight more for the 2020-21 school, including two each at Carolina Forest Elementary and River Oaks Elementary and four at Ocean Bay Elementary.
Mark Wolfe, the district’s executive director of facilities, told school board members Monday that the cost of those modulars would be about $1.62 million, though that figure didn’t include site work, which would likely be needed to at each school to accommodate additional parking needs.
Carolina Forest Elementary already has eight modular classrooms, Ocean Bay Elementary has six, and River Oaks Elementary has 16. Wolfe noted that these schools, as well as Waccamaw Elementary, Waterway Elementary, St. James Elementary, Carolina Forest High, St. James High and Socastee High could need additional modular classrooms by 2025.
The district has renovated or newly built a handful of schools the past few years to increase capacity for further anticipated growth, but most of the money they set aside for those projects has already been used, and the board has adopted a “pay-as-you-go” model to avoid raising taxes until at least the penny sales tax sunsets in 2024.
In deciding how to spend the limited building funds they have until then, board members have prioritized modular classrooms, budgeting $11.9 million to purchase them out of a projected $40.3 million available for building projects.
Alternative school building update
The one new school building currently being planned is Horry County Education Center, which was discussed at length during Monday’s facilities committee meeting.
The alternative school, which temporarily houses students with disciplinary infractions, has been operating since 2002 out of the former Kingston Elementary building off S.C. 905 in Conway, according to District Spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier.
Attendance at the center varies daily — there were 324 students there as of Monday — with the average length of stay being six to eight weeks per student, Bourcier said.
The new building is planned in a lot adjacent west of the district’s offices on Four Mile Road in Conway, and the board budgeted $13 million for the project, but facilities staff told the committee that the latest iteration of their building plan would cost $15 million and not include a kitchen.
The 40,000-square-foot building would include 27 classrooms with plans for a 3,000 square foot stand-alone gym and a projected completion date before fall 2021.
Multiple board members expressed concerns with the price, though they also had concerns about the lack of kitchen, with several saying they wouldn’t support moving forward without a kitchen included.
Mark Koll, the district’s coordinator of design, engineering and stability, told the board that facilities staff agreed that a kitchen should be included, but their conversations with the center’s principal established the importance of the gym, and they were trying to keep costs to a minimum.
Koll estimated that adding the kitchen back into the project would cost an additional $600,000-$700,000.
Without a kitchen, meals would be provided by the nearest school, which is Conway High School, according to Wolfe. All other schools in the district have a kitchen, though Wolfe said there have been occasions when one school had to provide meals for another due to renovations.
This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 6:49 PM.
