Freeport School District plans to close its junior high school and is considering its options as it reworks the district's facilities. In a time of shifting population in the county, enrollment is holding steady at Freeport.

Shifting student enrollments among school districts in Butler County are presenting school officials with a new set of challenges.

Generally, districts that are away from main roads to Pittsburgh or Cranberry Township are experiencing a drop in enrollments while those close to Interstate 79 or Route 28 are growing or maintaining their student bodies.

Either way, school officials are faced with several problems that show just how much things have changed since the years when baby boomers filled school hallways.

They must decide how much staff they need, whether buildings should be expanded or closed, and what courses they can offer. In addition, they have fixed costs that shrinking populations are less able to support financially.

Underlying all of it is a school- age population that reflects the county's high birth rate during the baby boom years and its "baby bust" during the 1970s and 1980s.

"In five to 10 years, we could see the bust turnaround," said Shelby Stewman, a demographer hired by the Butler, Karns City and Seneca Valley school districts.

Baby boomers' grandchildren will reach school age and may create an "echo boom" of their own, he said, even though schools are now experiencing a "baby bust." Stewman is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

These enrollment shifts demand that school districts perform a balancing act, especially those faced with smaller tax bases and fixed costs that don't shrink along with their populations.

The Butler School District had 13,000 students 42 years ago, but now it has 7,800, Superintendent Ed Fink said.By 2018 it's expected to have 7,337 students, according to the state Department of Education.The district has hired Stewman to identify pockets of growth, stability and decline in the district."As I see it, this is our road map going forward," Fink said of the study that is expected to be completed late this year or early 2011.Enrollment declines also are under way in the Karns City and Allegheny-Clarion Valley school districts.The Karns City district had 2,007 students in September 1999 and has 1,630 students this year. A loss of 377 students may not seem so large, but the school is expected to lose another 200 students in the next 10 years."I'm disappointed," Larry Henry, superintendent, said. "I'd like to see them going the other direction. But at least it gives us a sense of what the issues are going to be in the next 10 years."It's a similar situation in the A-C Valley district."We've had a drastic decline," said Brenda Brinker, superintendent.A-C Valley schools had 1,107 students in the 2000-01 school year and have lost 316 students since. This year, only 791 students are enrolled."It's good that we can have smaller class sizes," Brinker said.However, the decline reduces the state's basic education subsidy, shrinking the school's budget, she said.At the same time, enrollment in the Seneca Valley and Mars school districts is growing."Seneca Valley is continually refilling and growing its population," Stewman said.It's not because the birth rate is higher there. People are moving into that district to take advantage of its location and relatively easy commute to Pittsburgh as well as new housing stock, Stewman said.Butler County's lower taxes compared to Allegheny County also make the location attractive.The same holds true for Mars, which has experienced an increase of 494 students during the past 10 years.Enrollment in the Freeport School District, near Route 28, is holding steady. Even so, its school board recently decided it's time to close its aging junior high school.Without the junior high, students from seventh through 12th grades could fit into the senior high school. That is one of the options its board is considering as it reworks the district's facilities.

In Mars, it's only the third year that the new Centennial School has been open. The school houses the fifth and sixth grades and the district continues to hire new teachers, Jill Swaney, the district's business manager said.But in other districts, teachers, aides and support staff who retire are not being replaced and teachers may be moved to new classes or new schools to fill a gap.In addition, elective classes or advanced placement courses may not be offered every year in school districts with a shrinking student body."We now offer three foreign languages," Henry said. "If we don't have sufficient students to fill the classes, we may have to cancel one."A-C Valley has not replaced classroom aides for about three years, it is shuttering its elementary school kitchen, and it cuts advanced placement courses when they cannot be filled."Sometimes we may not be able to offer an advanced placement course because of a low number of students," she said.Last year, for example, the district canceled an advanced placement history class. Nevertheless, a canceled class can be put back on the schedule the following school year, she said.

The low birth rate among women of childbearing age, 15 to 45 years old, is influencing the situation."It's fairly common that births will change the location of where a child would go to school," Stewman said.That was the case in Mars, where students were shifted among Centennial and existing buildings to accommodate the burgeoning student population.In Butler County, Mars and Seneca Valley are the exceptions. It's more common for districts to close elementary schools.In the South Butler School District, which lost 319 students in the past 10 years, elementary schools were closed when the South Butler Primary School was built. For the last two years, the district has been examining its long-range plan to determine whether its facilities are meeting the educational needs of students and staff.In Butler, the school board was pleased that only a handful of students were shifted from Center Township to Oakland elementary schools when the schools were renovated in the 1990s, Fink said.Now Karns City is faced with the possibility of closing an elementary school."It may be two years down the road; it may be five years down the road, but the public would be involved in the process," said Eric Ritzert, incoming superintendent.

Still, there are fixed costs that school districts must meet no matter what their size.In rural areas like Butler County, transportation costs are among the largest of them.For example, the Butler School District covers 150 square miles, according to Fink. As the number of students on buses fall, the district is forced to seek new, cost-effective ways to move students while not exposing them to extremely long commutes.The same holds true in other districts.

At the height of the baby boom, women of child bearing age each had an average of 3.8 children, Stewman said. During the baby bust of the 1970s and 1980s, the birth rate fell to 1.6 to 1.7 children per woman, on average."The science says it takes 2.1 people to replenish an existing population," Stewman said. "One female and 1.1 males."Replenishment takes more than one male because men die at higher rates than women do, he said.Nevertheless, the numbers of baby boomers is continuing to influence school enrollments.Just as the children of baby boomers created a mini-boom in school districts 20 years ago, Stewman believes their grandchildren will do the same in five to 10 years.But the class sizes shrink with each passing generation.