By Dani Tietz
In a little over three weeks, the decision on the Nov. 8 ballot for $59.4 million in the Mahomet-Seymour School District referendum will be tabulated.
The district is asking voters to approve a property tax increase for the next 20 years in order to construct a 135,000-140,000 square-foot, two-story building to house approximately 900-1,000 sixth- through eighth-grade students on 38 acres that the district currently owns on the east side of the Village limits, just south of Middletown Prairie Elementary, according to the mahometseymour.org website.
The preliminary plans for the new facility were included in the $97.9 million referendum on the June 28, 2022 ballot, which failed by a margin of 3,511 (67.20%) opposed to 1,714 (32.80%) in favor. The district believed the measure failed because the ask was too big while many constituents cited the plan did not properly address the district’s capacity issues.
Many of those concerns are still in play, even with some board members questioning how the district will address growth across the board, citing that the district probably needs to add two facilities to the picture.
Squashing all predictions from 2019 and 2021 demographic studies, the Mahomet-Seymour School District’s enrollment increased by 6.5-percent from the previous year coming into the 2022-23 school year.
Currently, district-wide enrollment stands at 3,354, a figure the school district believed would come in the 2024-25 school year, according to a revised demographic study in 2021. Included in that study was a prediction that Mahomet-Seymour Junior High would have an enrollment of approximately 813 students by the 2026-27 school year, but that is the current enrollment of the junior high.
With planned capacity of the new junior high school slated to be between 900-1,000 students and a maximum capacity of 1,080, according to a June Bulldog Blueprint report, current enrollment is only 80 to 200 students away from space being limited once again.
Before the June 28 vote, constituents were told that the junior high school would reach planned capacity by 2033 if growth was at 1-percent per year, a figure the district established as average growth over the last 20 years.
The Mahomet Daily analyzed class enrollment data from 2012-2022 to find that the actual growth rate year-to-year is 1.7-percent, the figure the district used as a high-rate of growth. There are only two years within the last decade that the rate was below 1.5-percent, one of them being in 2020 with COVID mitigations.
Using the actual average (1.7-percent), the new Mahomet-Seymour Junior High building would reach “planned” capacity within seven years from now (noting the new building would not be completed for two to three years). This means that the current kindergarten class would be in seventh grade and the current first-grade class would be in eighth grade when the building would be expected to go over planned capacity.
Bulldog Blueprint data from the June 28 referendum stated that the new junior would reach maximum capacity at 1,080 students. Using the same model, the new Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School could reach “maximum” capacity within 17 years, three years before taxpayers would have the option to issue additional bonds or lower their property tax rate.
Knowing that class size increases by approximately 29-percent during the 13 years students spend at Mahomet-Seymour and seeing increased enrollment numbers in the elementary schools, particularly in K-2 since Middletown Prairie opened its doors in 2017, the district looked at what “high” growth would look like until 2040, near the time the bond would expire, should the referendum pass.
The district used 1.7-percent growth as their high measure, but seeing as that is actually the average growth rate, we added 70-percent to that measure to look at what a “high” growth rate would look like in Mahomet. There is no evidence that 6.5-percent enrollment increase year-over-year would be likely, but a rate higher than 1.7-percent could be feasible.
Should this growth continue at a high rate, 2.9-percent, the new Mahomet-Seymour Junior High building would be at planned capacity by 2026 and maximum capacity by 2032. This means that this would be expected to occur when the current second grade class would be in sixth-grade, the current third grade class would be in seventh-grade and the current fourth grade class would be in eighth-grade.
Community leaders have cautioned growth projections, saying it is contingent upon developer’s interest in the area. The Village of Mahomet was part of the 2019 demographic study completed by Cropper GIS. That study was updated in 2021 after projections fell short of enrollment.
The 2019 study accounted for Village growth within new developments in Thornewood, Deer Hollow, Sangamon Fields, Harvest Edge and Hunters Ridge subdivisions as well as the Solace and Middletown Apartment developments. To date, some of these developments are still not completed. Thornewood, for example, just received a nod from the Village of Mahomet for 34 additional single family units. The final phase of Harvest Edge is still not underway, but that will bring an additional 134 lots into the market. The report also assumed that once children graduate from Mahomet-Seymour High School, guardians would elect to stay in the community rather than relocate.
Other factors not considered by the demographic study that will impact the Mahomet-Seymour School District include Vision South, Unlimited Villas and a new subdivision along Tin Cup Road that were recently approved by the Village. As the South Mahomet Road extension is completed in 2023, Prairieside Subdivision, and property east of the school district’s 70-plus acre property will have access to infrastructure including roadways, water and sewer access to begin development. The Mahomet-Seymour School District spans about 15 miles to the north and south on the west side of Champaign County and about 8 miles east and west.
Mahomet is not the only community thinking about potential growth. In a recent St. Joseph Village board meeting, a board member suggested the Village market their community as a place to move to as Champaign Unit 4 schools look at reassigning elementary students as soon as next year. When Lee Superintendent Kenny Lee was asked if he had thought about if the issue would impact Mahomet-Seymour, he said, “what we need to continue to do is to monitor what’s occurring in our surrounding districts. Anytime that there’s something that is going to affect what they’re doing in their community, it could affect enrollment. We will continue to monitor that.”
Although Mahomet-Seymour Junior High is over capacity, enrollment at Lincoln Trail has caused the elementary staff to rethink classroom space and Middletown Prairie, which was completed in 2017, is not far behind. In an August meeting, members of the Board of Education and Lee recognized that building a junior high school may be one option to begin to address the issue.
Board members talked about how there needed to be a two-building solution, and Lee stated that down the line the district may need to think about multiple elementary schools.
Board members brought up the possibility of keeping the current Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School in commission to house overflow of Lincoln Trail students, should the referendum pass. When Lee was asked if the district would commit to that solution, Lee said, “I certainly am not interested in making that decision in a vacuum, so to speak.
“I think that certainly that overflow has been discussed, and that’s an option. I think, what you really need to look at is depending on how much overflow is needed, is that worth the expenses of keeping an additional building open that will by that time, be a few more years older and less efficient, as compared to do you look at, let’s say…we’re talking about Lincoln Trail here, if the referendum passes, do you look at moving transportation and looking at an additional Lincoln Trail? Are you looking at a temporary solution for portable something like that?
“But that’s not to say that that junior high would be off the table, either. I think that if the referendum passes, then we need to look at all options that we would have for the junior high. So there’s not been a commitment to one particular thing with that building.”
Although there was discussion in late spring of 2022 about doing another demographic study, Lee said that, at this time, the district will continue to monitor numbers. Enrollment well beyond what the demographic study at Middletown Prairie suggested was the prompt for an additional study in 2021.
“I really think that if we’ve seen additional numbers there, we’ll need to continue to look at how we’re utilizing our space and look at all of the options that we would have,” Lee said.
