JEKYLL ISLAND — The Effingham County School District is working to prevent growing pains through effective planning.

School officials are constantly looking at population trends to ensure that the system has all the space and teachers it needs. Superintendent Dr. Randy Shearouse described the process during the 2019 Community Retreat at the Jekyll Island Club on Aug. 23.

“We knew we were growing but we wanted to look out and see how we were growing, and what our needs are going to be in terms of school facilities,” Shearouse said during the Effingham County Chamber of Commerce event. 

In order to ensure that it had the best information available, the Effingham County Board of Education hired a firm to do a demographic study.

 “I think it was a worthwhile endeavor,” Shearouse said. “We actually met here last spring and had a presentation to talk about growth and facility plans ...”

During the current school year, the district was projected to have 12,408 students.

“We are almost there,” Shearouse said. “We didn’t quite grow that much this year. We are about 156 students less than that but we are very close.”

Shearouse said that his school district’s enrollment ranks 31st out of 180 in Georgia.

“Effingham County is not a small county,” he said. “We may be rural and consider ourselves that but we are large when you consider the number of students we have in the school system.”

In the next 10 years, the district expects to add about 2,000 students. Shearouse, however, said that number might change.

“You never know what may happen,” he said. “When I first became superintendent 14 years ago, we talked a little bit about a new high school. Of course, that didn’t quite happen.

“If we had kept growing like we were growing in ’07, ’08 and ’09, we probably would be talking about having another school at that point.”

The Great Recession interrupted population growth in the area for a few years but it has regained its strength. The number of building permits issued in the county has returned to pre-recession levels.

According to a Coastal Regional Commission study, Effingham is expected to grow faster than any area county in the next decade. The study predicts that the county’s population will reach 112,000 in 2030.

“I think that’s a little too aggressive,” Shearouse said. “Hopefully, it is.”

Shearouse warned that the Coastal Region Commission projection might be right. It predicted the county will have 64,000 people in 2020. It currently has 62,000, up 10,000 from a decade ago.

“As you can see, it’s really not that far off,” he said.

According to the study, Effingham County’s population will surge to 96,000 over the next five years.

“That would be tremendous (growth),” the superintendent said.

Shearouse believes a study by the Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning will prove to be more accurate.

“By 2030, it projects 76,000 people for Effingham County,” he said. “I think we can live with this one — an increase of 20,000 people from 2010 to 2030. Hopefully, that will be the kind of growth that we are looking at.”

Shearouse said school enrollment is expanding faster than the county’s birth rate, proving that the growth is spurred by the addition of new residents.

Every grade in the district currently has more than 900 students, he said.

“We feel like three years out we will need a new elementary school,” Shearouse said. “We will need 405 spaces by 2023-24. Of course, we may still have a little room on the north end of the county but we won’t have any room on the south end of the county.

“That’s where all our growth is occurring.”

South Effingham Elementary School is set to add 12 classrooms for 2020-21.

The district’s middle school population is spread evenly among three schools but a fourth will need to be added within five years, Shearouse said.

At the high school level, the district is in good shape, he added. The ability to absorb additional students has been enhanced by programs at Effingham College & Career Academy.

“By building that facility, we won’t need to have another high school anytime soon,” he said. “We also have a lot of students who are taking part in dual enrollment as well, so that takes a lot of students out of the high school numbers.”

Effingham County High School is slated to add a new wing of classrooms, a gym and a fieldhouse.

“That will also help prevent us from needing an additional high school,” Shearouse said.

Shearouse said staging areas for student drop-off and pick-up were built at the district’s newer schools and plans are underway to reduce traffic snarls at some of the others.

“Athletic additions at Ebenezer Middle school are actually in line with helping out the traffic there because if we move the football and baseball fields to the back we can have a little better driveway,” he said.

Shearouse said there is also discussion ongoing about the addition of a performing arts center.