Fifth-grader Cooper Johnson works on a language arts assignment in Deb Kravets' class at Mars Area Centennial School on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Morgan Phillips/Butler Eagle
Morgan Phillips
Mars Area School District’s resident student forecast anticipates growth in the student body over the next decade.
The resident student forecast is a demographics study that examines projected student enrollment over the next 10 years, and how the projections could be impacted by changes in the overall population of district communities.
Mars initiated the demographics study in July to “better understand the growing needs” of the district. This includes planning for an influx of new students over the next five to 10 years, as well as plans for accommodating those students. The district is working toward expanding its existing elementary school.
“The purpose of this report is to identify and inform the district of the demographic trends occurring within the community, how these trends may affect future student populations, and to assist in illustrating facility adjustments that may be necessary to accommodate the potential student population shifts, to assist the district in evaluating future site requirements and the need for potential attendance area changes,” the study’s written introduction said.
The study was conducted by MGT, an education-management company based in California.
Fifth-grader Braxton Young works on a language arts assignment in Deb Kravets' class at Mars Area Centennial School on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Morgan Phillips/Butler Eagle
Morgan Phillips
The study highlights that the townships encompassing Mars Area School District are experiencing population growth. The communities that make up the district — Mars, Harmony and Valencia boroughs and Adams and Middlesex townships — have experienced population growth in recent years and will expect more with new housing developments being built.
The student body at Mars is around 3,600. Using fall 2024 census data as a base, the study shows the school district’s student body will continue growing. It is expected to peak around 2030 at around 4,000 students, before plateauing through 2034. The forecast shows growth in all grade levels at Mars.
Georgia Leonard, director of geographic information systems at MGT, told the Mars school board earlier this month with births occurring within the township (assuming those children will start kindergarten around five years later), kindergarten cohorts can be expected to increase in size over the next several years, especially when families who move into the district are taken into account.
Fifth-grade students in Samantha Wilfert’s class work through math problems together at Mars Area Centennial School on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Morgan Phillips/Butler Eagle
Morgan Phillips
“You had more kindergartners than you would expect to have based on the students born. So what that means is you have students that are moving into your district, you’ve got an inward migration,” Leonard said.
Students live all over the communities that make up Mars, but a heat map showed to the board by MGT indicated a significant portion of the population lives south of Route 228 in Adams Township. For the fall of 2024, student population density is largely based in southern Adams Township, as well as a large cluster in southwestern Middlesex Township.
The study also looked at the correlation of houses being built within Mars communities and how many new students the district can expect. the district could expect to gain approximately 46 students for every 100 new single-family detached homes that are constructed, Leonard said. According to the study, 17 residential projects with a combined 1,099 “units” are either under construction or in the planning stages at various locations across the district’s communities.
The 2024-25 study provides multiple analysis summaries. A large kindergarten cohort in 2021 was the result of students returning to school after the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a “bubble.”
There were a couple oddities in the study. The 2022 kindergarten cohort was an anomaly, with only 215 students, less than other recent years. This cause what appears to be a dip in student enrollment. Another that Leonard pointed out to the board was that certain grades have different levels of growth. For example, kindergarten and first grade, as well as seventh through 12th grades, are forecast to grow. However, grades two through six show a modest decline.
