State High Schools Expected to Grow 34% in Next Decade : Education: Children of baby boomers are growing up. ‘Essentially, we need to build 19 new classrooms every day,’ an official says.

The number of California high school students will surge by 34% over the next decade, reversing the no-growth trend of the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Education said in a report to be released today.

Throughout the nation, children of the baby boomers swelled class rolls in elementary schools during the 1980s. They will do the same for high schools during the next decade, the government report said.

Nationwide, the number of students enrolled in public high schools is expected to grow from 11.2 million this year to an estimated 13.4 million in the year 2000, a gain of about 20%, the report estimates.

The projected growth rate is far higher in California, where an influx of immigrants and higher birth rates have fueled an enrollment boom in the elementary grades. That surge is about to sweep through secondary schools.

Enrollment in the state’s public high schools is expected to rise from 1.32 million this year to 1.77 million in the year 2000, a 34% increase. Meanwhile, the number of graduates will grow from an estimated 230,580 next June to 333,640 in the class of the year 2000, an increase of about 45%.

The figures are good news for employers of young people and for college admissions officers, but they will cause problems for officials who oversee school construction.

“All those elementary kids we got in the last decade are growing up on us. And we don’t have room for all of them,” said Henry Heydt, assistant director of the school facilities division in the state Education Department in Sacramento. “We need to build 166 high schools in the next five years.”

In the last decade, school planners were able to shift some students from overcrowded elementary buildings to empty high school classrooms. But that will no longer be an option, Heydt said.

The state projects that its schools will gain an extra 230,000 students each year for the next five years. “Essentially, we need to build 19 new classrooms every day,” Heydt said.

The state Department of Finance predicted in September that huge enrollment increases in public schools will continue at least until the end of the decade. Figures released by the department’s population unit showed that enrollment in kindergarten through 12th grade will grow from almost 5 million to 6.8 million in the fall of 1999.

Enrollment jumps have been the underlying causes of problems such as overcrowded classes, the shaky financial condition faced by 20 to 30 school districts and a $5-billion backlog in unmet school construction needs.

State officials predicted that the highest projected percentage increase would be in Riverside County, where school enrollments are expected to increase by almost 107%--from 201,600 this year to 417,000 in 1999. Los Angeles County is expecting a 36% increase in the next 10 years, Orange County 44%, San Diego County 55% and Ventura County 30%.

The U.S. government report, “Projections of Education Statistics to 2001,” is based on data compiled over the last decade or longer to project trends over the next 10 years.

It indicates that for the most part, the enrollment trends of the 1980s will be reversed in the decade ahead:

* Nationwide, public school enrollments in kindergarten through eighth grade rose from 27.6 million in 1980 to 29.5 million in 1990. The number is expected to peak at 31.1 million in 1996 and finish the decade by edging down to 30.7 million by the year 2000.

* Public high school enrollments nationwide declined from 13.2 million in 1980 to 11.2 million in 1990. They are expected to increase steadily to 13.4 million by the turn of the century.

* In California, enrollments through the eighth grade rose even faster over the last 10 years, from 2.7 million in 1980 to 3.6 million this year. The number should peak at 3.95 million in 1998 and decline slightly to 3.92 million in the year 2000.

* While elementary schools bulged, enrollment in California’s high schools declined slightly in the 1980s. The number of students in grades nine to 12 fell from 1.36 million in 1980 to 1.32 million in 1990.

* Nationwide, the number of high school graduates fell from 2.41 million in the 1985 school year to an estimated 2.23 million for the current school year. But the graduation total is expected to increase to 2.62 million in the year 2000.

SURGE IN U.S. HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES

A U.S. Department of Education report estimates that the number of students graduating from California high schools will rise 45% over the next decade, from 230,580 in 1991 to 333,640 in the year 2000.

1991: 230,580 2000: 333,640