SOUTH COUNTY : Adding Classrooms to Ease Enrollment

Driven by fast-paced housing development in the area, enrollment in South County school districts has topped official predictions this year, forcing some schools to add classrooms and teachers to cope with the growth, according to local school officials.

In the Capistrano Unified School District, for instance, enrollment has increased by 8%, adding about 550 more students than administrators had anticipated, said district spokeswoman Jacqueline Cerra. Saddleback Valley Unified School District’s growth was smaller, but still exceeded official predictions.

As of Monday, total Capistrano district enrollment stood at 26,602. But district officials had only planned on having 26,048 students by October, Cerra said.

The bulk of the growth occurred in the district’s bulging elementary school campuses where student population grew by 10.3%. A total of 15,243 elementary school children now attend school in the district, 1,314 more than last year.

Growth was most noticeable in developing areas of San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel and San Clemente, but schools in all communities experienced enrollment increases, Cerra said.

The growing number of students has created school bus overloads and a need for more portable classrooms at elementary schools, according to staff reports presented at Monday night’s board meeting.

In the Saddleback district, enrollment increased by 4.7%--increasing from 24,028 at the end of last year to 25,152 on Monday. That brings the district total to 255 more students than administrators had planned on, given the sluggish real estate market and relatively slow economy, Supt. Peter Hartman said.

The extra students will force the district to add three more classrooms to the district’s elementary school campuses and hire more permanent teachers, Hartman said.