LTHS Enrollment Projected To Drop Further

LA GRANGE, IL – Enrollment at Lyons Township High School, which is at its lowest level in a dozen years, is expected to drop further in the coming years.

Earlier this month, the school released its demographic report from consultant John Kasarda.

Last school year, Lyons Township's enrollment stood at 3,967. It is expected to fall by about 230, to 3,736, by 2027-28, Kasarda said.

Then the number is projected to rise slowly over the next nine years, to 3,905.

These numbers are well below the enrollment of more than 5,000 in the first half of the 1970s. The school's enrollment has been stable for more than four decades, officials say.

Changes to births won't affect the projections because virtually everyone who will enter high school before 2036-37 is already born.

Kasarda's report showed that nearly a quarter of all residents in the high school's zone were at least 60 years old.

Kasarda said his expectation was that an increasing number of homes in the school's zone will turn over to younger families in the next five to 15 years, prompting renewed enrollment growth.

Earlier this month, school board members pointed to the demographic report in voting to put the school's Willow Springs property up for sale.

The school bought the land in two phases in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when enrollment was surging. The property was expected to be used for a third campus. But then enrollment dropped in the late 1970s and then stabilized.