Student enrollment at St. Charles Community Unit District 303 is continuing on an upswing for the 20th consecutive year.
The district recently announced a total of 13,589 students were registered by the end of September for the current school year, up 247 from a year earlier, including 20 more in special education. The state will use the figure for its fall housing report.
District 303 made earlier projections that 450 new students were to enroll, but officials said some larger residential subdivisions in the area developed more slowly than expected.
“Projections are just that,” Dave Zager, assistant superintendent of business services, said in a statement. “It is difficult to know what the housing market will do and when the students will actually come, but we fully expect our growth to continue.”
The school district encompasses 57 square miles and comprises two high schools, three middle schools and 12 elementary schools. It is operating under a $118.2 million budget for the current school year.
District 303 enrollment has risen 104 percent from its 1985-86 total of 6,653 students. A majority of the growth came in the last decade, in which the district accepted 4,086 more students.
A Northern Illinois University study in 2004 predicted about 17,300 will attend District 303 schools by the time all housing areas have been built out, although the study did not say when that would occur.
