The establishment of a districtwide demographic task force to study Lindbergh Schools’ aggressive enrollment growth will be considered by the Board of Education when it meets next week.

The school board will meet at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, in the boardroom at the district’s Early Childhood Education center, 4814 S. Lindbergh Blvd.

During a workshop Saturday morning, board members agreed by consensus to convene the demographic task force to study the enrollment growth and present recommendations to the Board of Education on how to address it. The board’s discussion focused on opening a sixth elementary school on the roughly 10-acre site of the Dressel School building. The district closed on the $1.94 million purchase of the property in July 2011.

The last time the school board established a demographic task force was in October 2007 to study overcrowding at Sperreng Middle School. That panel’s recommendation led to Proposition 2008, a $31 million bond issue that voters approved in November 2008.

While Sperreng remained a sixth- through eighth-grade middle school, funds from Prop R 2008 were used to convert Truman Elementary School to a sixth- through eighth-grade middle school, add onto Crestwood and Long elementary schools, convert Concord School to an elementary school and construct the new Early Childhood Education center.

But district officials said Saturday that because of the aggressive enrollment growth, all of the additional space provided by Prop R 2008 is being used for classrooms or Special School District programming.

Brian McKenney, assistant superintendent for personnel services, told the board that since the 2007-2008 school year, enrollment growth has totaled 295 students.

Though the district is phasing out its participation in the voluntary transfer program, local enrollment is surging, he noted.

While the district has lost 274 voluntary transfer students over the past five years, residential enrollment has increased by 569 students for the net growth of 295 students. But the decrease in the number of voluntary transfer students “has come to an end. There are no more students to exit the program. So we’ll no longer have that luxury of that enrollment population going down. Now it will simply be a forward growth population,” McKenney said.

“So looking forward over the next five years, based on our projections that were presented to the board back in February, by the 2017-’18 school year, we’re looking to add 464 students, largely concentrated at our elementary schools,” he continued. “And to provide some perspective on what that looks like, if you take the average size of our elementary classrooms today and you divide that number, you come up with 23 additional classrooms will be necessary with 23 additional teachers, and that approximates another elementary school.”

Three major subdivisions under construction, including Grant’s View at Gravois and Musick roads, also will provide an influx of additional students, said Beth Johnston, the district’s director of communications.

“… From Grant’s View alone, we’re anticipating another 120 students, and that’s in addition to Brian’s projections …,” she said.

Opening a new elementary school would require voter approval of a bond issue to fund construction and an increase in the district’s operational tax-rate to hire more teachers, but board members noted the process of moving forward is just starting and many questions remain to be answered.

Board President Vic Lenz said, “… I think each board member and administrator (should) mark down June 1st, 2013, as the beginning point of a major project that we’ll all be involved in for awhile … Today is, I think, a red-letter day. We’ve begun — I think we’ve said to the administration we’re going to begin a process … and we’re going to be hearing more as we move forward …”

Of the purchase of Dressel, Simpson said, “… That’s why we have it. We knew this was coming … We just needed that formal pop the cork and say, ‘Let’s get started,’ and that’s what we have today.”