The AS&U 100

Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Mike Kennedy

Climbing the list

The school board has decided not to pursue a bond election this fall and is expected to use the task force report as the basis for a new bond proposal in 2008. The task force put forth four scenarios for possible bond issues, ranging from the full $2.58 billion to a scaled-down request of $1.2 billion.

The projects that would be part of the $2.58 billion package include 14 new elementary schools, four new middle schools and one new high school. Those would cost $553 million. Twenty-four schools would receive additions at a cost of $206 million. About $1.26 billion would be allocated for renovations and modernizations at 218 existing schools.

About $179 million is needed for land acquisition, the task force says, and $96 million would go for technology upgrades. Administration and support facilities would get $56 million for improvement; kitchen and dining facilities would get $53 million for refurbishment; and another $53 million would go for athletic facility upgrades. About $50 million would be spent on abating hazardous materials in the district, and $12 million would be set aside for science lab additions.

The $1.2 billion scenario would provide funding for only 14 new schools instead of 19, and 12 additions instead of 24, and would cut allocations for renovations and modernizations by two-thirds.

Like a speeding car getting ever larger in the rearview mirror, the Douglas County (Colo.) district has been rapidly closing the gap as it made its way to the list of the nation's 100 largest school systems. In 2005-06, Douglas County cracked the top 100 for the first time. Its 48,041 students made the district the 97^th largest in the United States.

Douglas County, which lies between Denver and Colorado Springs, was the nation's fastest-growing county in the 1990s, and the school system has seen its student enrollment quintuple in the last two decades. In 1986, it was the 666^th-largest school system, with 9,693 students. Since then, student numbers have risen significantly every year — ranging from 3.5 percent to 12.5 percent annually.

To accommodate the influx of students, the district has been in continual construction mode. In the 1980s, Douglas County built 11 schools; in the 1990s, it built 21; from 2000 to 2005, it built another 20.

The district's projections point to continued growth for years to come. It expects to have more than 51,600 students this fall, and by 2012-13, it projects having more than 63,300 students. In 2006, voters approved a $200 million bond proposal to keep pace with the growth. That will enable the school system to build six new elementary schools, a new middle school, an early-childhood-education center and a stadium, as well as numerous facility renovations.

Still, all those additional facilities have not been enough to accommodate the burgeoning enrollment. So the district uses portable classrooms — it had 118 in 2006 — and year-round calendars at some schools to boost capacity at many of its campuses.

“The use of the four-track year-round calendars and mobile classrooms has enabled the district to save taxpayers millions of dollars in capital expenditures, while planning for a day when growth is minimal,” says Steve Herzog, the district's chief operating officer.

In 2007, Douglas County anticipates that nearly 16,000 students will attend 24 elementary schools that have year-round calendars. That amounts to about 56 percent of the district's elementary students.

Stadium is sign of Central Florida's growth

The numbers show that the University of Central Florida (UCF) has become one of the largest campuses in the United States. Enrollment at the Orlando-based school climbed more than 68 percent from 1995 to 2005, and it now has the 11^th-largest enrollment among higher-education institutions, compared with 47^th in 1995.

But more tangible evidence that the university has reached the top ranks of colleges and universities will be on display beginning in mid-September when UCF unveils its new on-campus football stadium. After years of playing off campus in the Citrus Bowl, the UCF Golden Knights' home field will be the 45,000-capacity Bright House Networks Stadium. The stadium is the key element of a $60 million project to upgrade athletic fields and facilities. The university raised funds for construction through naming rights, revenues from suites and club seat leases, ticket and concessions sales, donations, corporate sponsorships and advertising.

About a week before the stadium's debut, UCF is opening another noteworthy facility — a new 10,000-seat convocation center, about double the capacity of the existing campus arena. The venue will be home to the university's basketball teams, and will host concerts and other events. The convocation center is the focal point of a development called Golden Knights Plaza, which includes 2,000 student apartments, more than 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and three parking garages.

Central Florida has steadily climbed the list of colleges and universities as its enrollment has increased, but another school on the 2005 list seems to have popped up out of nowhere. Western International University, with 50,663 students, ranks fifth on the list. Like the University of Phoenix — the U.S. university with the most students — Western International is owned by Apollo Group in Phoenix.

A spokesman for Apollo Group says that Western International's sudden spike in enrollment is a one-time phenomenon. The students were part of a program that was under the auspices of Western International for one year; subsequently the program was moved under the University of Phoenix umbrella, and Western International will drop off the 2006 list.

20 largest enrollments, colleges and universities, fall 2005

Rank	Institution	State	2005 Enroll.	2004 Enroll.	1995 Enroll.	10-yr% change
1	University of Phoenix Online Campus	AZ	117,309	115,794	n/a*	n/a*
2	Miami-Dade College	FL	54,169	57,026	47,060	15.1%
3	Arizona State University	AZ	51,612	49,171	42,040	22.8%
4	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities	MN	51,175	50,954	51,445	-0.5%
5	Western International University	AZ	50,663	n/a*	n/a*	n/a*
6	Ohio State University	OH	50,504	50,995	48,676	3.8%
7	University of Texas at Austin	TX	49,696	50,377	47,905	3.7%
8	University of Florida	FL	46,693	47,993	39,412	18.5%
9	Michigan State University	MI	45,166	44,836	40,647	11.1%
10	Texas A&M University	TX	44,910	44,435	41,790	7.5%
11	University of Central Florida	FL	44,856	42,465	26,556	68.9%
12	City College of San Francisco	CA	43,255	42,438	26,019	66.2%
13	University of South Florida	FL	42,660	42,238	36,142	18.0%
14	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	IL	41,938	40,687	38,420	9.2%
15	University of Wisconsin-Madison	WI	40,793	40,455	39,005	4.6%
16	Pennsylvania State University	PA	40,709	41,289	39,646	2.7%
17	Purdue University	IN	40,151	40,108	36,427	10.2%
18	New York University	NY	40,004	39,408	35,835	11.6%
19	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	MI	39,993	39,533	36,687	9.0%
20	North Harris (Texas) Montgomery Community College	TX	39,949	35,788	n/a*	n/a*
Source: National Center for Education Statistics *Was not among the 120 largest campuses in 1995.