ROBERTSDALE – As new subdivisions spring up on the Eastern Shore, Baldwin County school officials are working to keep up with growing enrollment in the area with the most rapid population increases in Alabama’s fastest growing county, local officials said.
Bill Harbour, planning and redistricting coordinator for the Baldwin County School System, said much of the county’s growth in the last five years has been on the Eastern Shore. That trend is expected to continue.
“The Spanish Fort, Daphne, Fairhope feeder patterns contain nearly 43 percent of newly occupied homes,” Harbour said. “The same three feeder patterns contain nearly 83 percent of the available lots, not developed lots, and these same three feeder patterns contain nearly half of all the new students added since 2017.”
Harbour spoke with local officials on Wednesday, Nov. 3, at a Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency meeting in Robertsdale. The meetings was held to discuss growth and how changes could affect disaster planning.
Jenni Guerry, assistant director of the Baldwin County Emergency Management agency, said EMA population studies have found that much of the growth in those areas is due to families with young children.
“When we look at our population of new families, we know that 15 people move here a day,” Guerry said. “A lot of those are young families. We’re looking at children below the age of 5 to make those appropriate decisions for anticipation of school enrollment.”
Harbour said some of the biggest increases in population have been in areas along U.S. 31 near Spanish Fort and on Alabama 181 in Daphne and Fairhope.
“We’re really concerned about a couple of different areas and those areas are up 31, where Stonebridge is, and down 181, where Dunmore is, Jubilee Farms and Old Field are,” he said.
“There are a lot of reasons why that area is ground zero for us. One of those is access to Interstate 10. There at 181 and 10, it’s a straight shot,” Harbour added.
A new elementary school is under construction in Stonebridge on U.S. 31 between Spanish Fort and Loxley. Harbour said more facilities will be needed if the area grows as expected.
“That area surrounding Stonebridge has nearly one child per house student density,” Harbour said. “The county average is about a half a child per house. Here, it’s nearly one child per house. So, if you’ve got 1,000 units, and Stonebridge probably has more than 1,000 units, maybe five times that by the time it’s fully developed, you’ve got 5,000 children grade K through 12 that are coming out of that subdivision. That’s an enormous amount of children.”
In Baldwin County, the average ratio of school-age children is 3 children for every 25 people in the total population. On the Eastern Shore, that ratio is about 3.75 for every 25 residents, Harbour said.
The growth trend is expected to continue. A study of real estate in Baldwin County in the last five years found that the Eastern Shore has 41,343 lots that are planned but have not been developed. The total for the rest of Baldwin County is 19,881, Harbour said.
The increase in telecommuting could also bring changes in general population growth and school enrollment, he said. As more people work from home and do not have to be near their offices in other regions of the country, areas such as Baldwin County could draw more residents.
“If this trend in telecommuting continues, we are going to see more people moving into areas that haven’t been there before and more children in these areas than we’ve had before, if this keeps up and it looks like it is,” he said.
