SPRINGFIELD — The flow of people into Effingham County during the next decade isn’t expected to be of tsunamic proportions. It’s not going to be just a little trickle, however.

According to the Coastal Regional Commission of Georgia, Effingham County is growing faster than all the other nine counties it serves, meaning school additions and new facilities will have to be built here soon.

“Locally, we’ve been forecasting about three percent growth (in student enrollment) per year,” Effingham County Superintendent Dr. Randy Shearouse said. “We have a little over 12,000 students, so we are growing 300-400 students a year. Of course, every year — if you continue to grow at three percent — you will grow a little bit more.”

The Coastal Regional Commission projects Effingham County’s population to exceed 121,000 in 2030, slightly more than double what it is today.

“It may not be that (much) but I think you can expect pretty heavy growth,” said Shearouse, who has seen the school district’s enrollment grow by more than 3,000 since he became superintendent 14 years ago.

The Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget’s population projection for Effingham County is substantially lower at 76,320.

 “If we are at 60,000 people now, you are talking about another 16,000 people or so by 2030,” Shearouse said while discussing the smaller prediction. “If you figure for every two people that there are one or two children, that’s still a lot of population growth.”

The number of live births for Effingham County residents has remained fairly steady recently but that number doesn’t account for people moving here. Most of them are of child-rearing age.

Shearouse and Effingham County Board of Education members having been keeping tabs on population statistics and enlisted the help of demographics expert James Wilson to uncover other helpful information. Wilson presented his findings to the board during an April retreat at Jekyll Island.

“This is some good information that I think we can use to start making those plans for growth in the future,” Shearouse said.

It is clear where the district’s next schools will be built.

“They will need to be on the south end (of the county),” Shearouse said. “That’s where (studies are) indicating that the growth will occur. A lot of growth is in the Rincon area, of course, but anywhere from Rincon south is where you will see the majority of the growth.”

One plan under consideration for the near future is adding 12 classrooms to South Effingham Elementary School.

“This would help alleviate the overcrowding there,” Shearouse said. “We are having to move, unfortunately, their pre-K kids to Rincon (Elementary School) for next year because of the growth. We needed the classroom space there.

“If we can put those additional classrooms — and they would fit perfectly at the back of that school — that would help relieve the overcrowding conditions that we expect to experience. They are not overcrowded at this point but it’s going to happen if we don’t do anything.”

Another plan calls for the removal of the portable buildings at Effingham County High School and replacing them with wings of classrooms.

“That would help with our high school growth and allow us to do some other athletic upgrades,” Shearouse said. “That school can hold over 2,000 students and, if we add additional classrooms there, we will also need more gym facilities and that kind of thing. The old football locker room is up by the gym so this would allow us to get a little closer to the practice field area.

“That’s a little longer-range plan.”

Shearouse thinks Effingham County and South Effingham high schools can accommodate considerable growth over the next few years. They currently have 1,870 and 1,618 students, respectively.

Ironically, the number of county building permits approved in 2018 was considerably more in Effingham County High School’s zone (419) than in South Effingham’s (147). The difference is easily explained, however.

“Effingham County High School, because it does take in part of Rincon, is showing more building permits than South but that is mainly because a lot of the building permits were in that Rincon general area,” Shearouse said.

Potential population problems at the high schools have been lessened by the existence of Effingham College & Career Academy. Students in grades 9-12 can attend classes there and earn professional certifications and credentials in nursing, allied health, sports medicine, engineering, robotics, web design, computer science, culinary arts, automotive technology and maintenance, and logistics.

“We are probably going to have a thousand kids going in and out of that building next year,” Shearouse said. “That really helps relieve the two high schools from being overcrowded for sure.”

At the elementary school level, the board and Wilson’s findings are similar. They indicate the need for another school in the next three to five years.

“Three years is not very far off, of course, so we have to make something happen very fast,” the superintendent said. “We do have that on a five-year facility plan. You try to earn as many state dollars as you can and it has to be on your facility plan to earn state dollars.”

Effingham County has eight elementary schools. South Effingham and Marlow are near their capacity but the others aren’t.

“Because the way the schools are spread throughout the county and not all of them are full, sometimes those numbers don’t work like you’d like them to work,” Shearouse said. “The state will show that we have open classes at Springfield and that means you might not earn as much state funding because you show open classrooms.

“That is true but, unfortunately, they are not always in the right place.”

Springfield and Guyton elementary schools have available space but transporting students from the south end of the county to them is problematic.

Shearouse said studies indicate that another middle school will be needed in the next five years.

“You’ve got to find land, you’ve got to get the plans for the building and you’ve got to build it,” Shearouse said. “It takes three to five years to get all that done.”

ESPLOST revenue won’t be enough to fund new school needs, Shearouse said.

“With the way we are looking at growth and what’s coming, there’s going to have to be some funding besides ESPLOST,” he said. “Rincon Elementary School is being paid for with ESPLOST. It’ll be paid off within the five-year period (the tax is in effect), so we have three years, basically, left on it.

“I thank voters all the time for approving ESPLOST and allowing us to pay it off in five years but, with our population growing — we buy all our technology out of ESPLOST, we buy all our buses out of ESPLOST, band instruments, all renovations and repairs — I don’t think we can keep relying on ESPLOST to do that. We are going to have to look at another funding source and, usually, that is a general obligation bond where so much of your millage rate is going toward your building projects.”

Projects designed to reduce traffic problems at some schools are also under consideration.