CHESTERTON | The population within the area the Duneland School Corp. serves is growing at a healthy rate, but school enrollment won't necessarily keep pace.

That was the word from a South Carolina-based demographer in his report to the School Board on Monday.

Jerome McKibben, of McKibben Demographic Research, told the board that several things will inhibit school enrollment growth over the next decade.

Residents generally like the area and don't move away once their children grow out of the schools. They will occupy homes that younger families can't, McKibben said.

The decline in the housing market will mean fewer new homes than once predicted, he said. Sales of existing homes will outpace sales of new homes by at least two to one, and a fair part of that will be empty nesters downsizing, McKibben said.

An extremely low drop-out rate leads to "the curse of the successful school district," McKibben said. A larger number of 18-year-olds are graduating, moving away and not starting families in the area because of the lack of inviting job opportunity.

The current population of residents in their 20s, the range when two-thirds of births occurs, is not enough to keep school enrollment constant over the next decade, he said.

Accordingly, the district will need to rely on in-migration and average 100 new families a year simply to break even on enrollment. McKibben predicted that district enrollment would grow by about 500 students over the next 10 years. Graduating classes that are larger than normal will moderate growth, he said.

Factors such as recession, job creation, housing starts and mortgage availability could affect his forecasts, McKibben said.

Board President Janice Custer said she was surprised by the projected lack of enrollment growth. The study will be used with other instruments to decide the need for expanding facilities, Custer said.

Superintendent Dirk Baer was not surprised and said the assumption had been that subdivision growth in the area would translate to larger school enrollments. The study, he said, did not factor in the potential effect of things such as universal full-day kindergarten.

Baer said the board would propose at its next meeting a further study that would complement the demographic study by looking at the district's educational needs.