The chatter of kids catching up after summer break filled the shiny new cafeteria of East Central Independent School District’s Honor Elementary on Wednesday.
The new school was built to alleviate crowding for the growing district, which stretches from just east of Converse south to Elmendorf, and from just inside the southeast corner of Interstate 410 and Brooks City Base to the eastern edge of Bexar County.
Evidence of the reason for the district’s growth surrounds the school — advertisements for new housing subdivisions sprinkled between farmland.
Principal Stephanie Orsak said about half of her students and staff come from East Central’s Tradition Elementary.
“They had almost 1,200 students last year, so they had a lot of staff and a lot of students, and that's why we're so grateful that we were able to build Honor Elementary when the 2022 bond passed,” Orsak said.
This year, Honor has about 800 students, giving them plenty of room. But already demographers are projecting the new school will be overcrowded in just a few years.
“Even now with this new school, we're still only going to have, like, about two years before we have 120% occupancy for Honor. So that shows you how fast it's growing,” said Brandon Oliver, East Central’s director of marketing and communications.
“This was supposed to alleviate and now we're going to have to ask the community for more help in that regard,” Oliver said. “The high school is busting at the seams. They’re around 3,500 or so students.”
East Central’s 2022 bond also will also pay for another elementary school and a new middle school.
A demographer’s study completed for the district in the spring of 2024 projects the district will at least double in size by 2033, growing from about 11,000 students to at least 22,000.
But in the meantime, Orsak said her students are just happy to explore their new school.
“The kids, of course, are super excited that it is a two-story school. So, a lot of the students have never been up on a second story, or been in a two-story school,” Orsak said. “And then, of course, we have this amazing state of the art library that the kids are so excited to come into.”
The library and school are decorated with a forest theme, with green trees painted on the walls and reading corners in the library with grass-like carpet and stools that look like logs.
East Central ISD is one of a handful of districts on the outskirts of Bexar County experiencing enrollment growth. The county’s largest districts, meanwhile, including Northside, North East, and San Antonio ISD, are experiencing the opposite phenomenon.
