HARMONY — The Seneca Valley School District is looking to the future to see what projects might be needed to enhance the district.

The school board Monday night learned about these issues in a feasibility study update by Mike Corb, senior associate with Stantec.

The study shows student enrollment will remain stable. It also reveals that residents want the district to teach the whole child and not just focus on academics.

The general conclusions from the enrollment projections show that kindergarten is going to slightly increase, Corb said. The projected increases in the next three to four years are due to new housing developments.

Corb said during the past three years kindergarten has had a slight decrease in enrollment, but there has been a slight increase in enrollment between kindergarten and first grade.

“What that is telling us is that potentially parents in the district might be utilizing other kindergarten options that are available to them within the district,” Corb said.

“The slight increase between kindergarten and grade one says that they are actually coming back to the district.”

Overall, district enrollment has been stable over the past three years, he said.

But there are 13 planned developments in the district, Corb said. The overall district enrollment projection in the next 10 years will start off with a 1.8 percent increase, but it will level off and be sustained.

“There are certain instances where there is a little more aggressive growth, which is projected to happen in the Connoquenessing Valley Elementary School.”

Corb also said he talked with first responders, police chiefs, business leaders, parents and students to learn their views of the district.

Corb said there are themes that are starting to arise through these conversations. One of those is a desire to teach the whole child and not just focus on academics.

“The district has a very strong interest in developing whole children — responsible adults and responsible citizens,” Corb said.

Some of the actions these people would like to see are teachers working together more and turning the buildings into inspirational environments.

“They feel like there is opportunity to have the buildings be a little more inspiring in terms of their internal and external environments,” Corb said.

Another reoccurring theme is that the buildings are not encouraging 21st century learning.

Corb said 21st century learning is teaching students to work together. It is also a different mode of teaching that looks at critical thinking, creativity and communication.

“It is a new skill set that children are learning under and teachers are teaching under that did not exist when these buildings were built,” Corb said.

Buildings are starting to evolve into teaching tools, he said.

He noted some improvements needed to buildings are maintenance issues such as electrical, plumbing, site circulation and some handicap and building code issues.

Corb said the another focus of the study is to look at the main campus.

One of the issues with the campus is that there is only one way in and one way out for traffic, which is a safety concern, he said.

Other suggestions were about making the campus more pedestrian oriented and creating more green space as a link between the buildings, Corb said.

Corb gave other examples of ways to improve the curb appeal of the main campus. Some options are outdoor learning sites since there is a creek, wetlands and a wooded hillside on the property.

“All of these are great opportunities for outdoor learning environments,” he said.

District officials now need to start talking about setting their values and priorities, Corb said.

“As we start to flesh that out, we’re going to have a better understanding on how to help facilitate and guide you and provide the right information for you to ultimately make decisions on where to take the district over the next five to 10 to 20 years,” he said.

Corb said the next steps of the study are to finalize the demographics, meet with the administration, continue to talk with the public and come up with options and their costs.

Through this process, Superintendent Tracy Vitale said listening to residents has given the district the chance to ask them what they want to see in the district.

Vitale said the district is working with the University of Pittsburgh’s Assessment Center to develop a survey for every parent and others in the district because school officials want to hear from the entire community about their vision for the district.

That survey should be done by the end of September.

“I love where we are headed,” Vitale said. “The difficult decisions will be, since we don’t have money to do it all, what are your priorities.”