By Jennifer Mrozowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Revised enrollment projections show Cincinnati Public Schools will continue losing students at a rate much faster than anticipated, jeopardizing the district's 10-year school construction project.

DeJong Inc., a Dublin, Ohio, firm hired by the state to make the calculations, Monday predicted the district will drop to 33,113 in 10 years, a loss of almost 6,000 students from today's enrollment.

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The numbers are even starker than projections released in April, which are already causing the district to scale back the project by 3,000 students just to meet the current enrollment.

DeJong's projections are used for planning how many schools to build.

The state, which is funding about 20 percent of the $1 billion cost to build and renovate 66 Cincinnati public schools in the next decade, won't fund the project beyond expected enrollment.

The new enrollment projections are pertinent because the board plans to approve the next 17 schools set for construction by June 28.

But district officials said they don't think the numbers paint a true picture of the future of the 38,800-student district.

"That's DeJong's opinion," Thomas Gunnell, the district's chief operations officer, said of the projections. "I have asked for other factors to be considered."

Though the firm uses birthrate data, historic district enrollment, charter school enrollment trends and other demographic date to make projections, Gunnell said the figures don't consider other variables.

He said they should consider the possibility of students returning to the district to take advantage of the new schools, increased enrollment due to planned expansions of popular programs and the survivability of charter schools, which have been drawing enrollment from Cincinnati Public Schools.

The new figures have the district scrambling to consider how to proceed with construction plans.

Just last month, the district announced plans to scale back the building project to accommodate 38,900 students instead of 42,165.

Declining birthrate and greater-than-expected competition from charter schools are two of the reasons the district has lost students, DeJong officials said.

The new projections could mean more revisions to the building project unless Cincinnati school officials convince the state to consider other factors that could increase enrollment.

E-mail jmrozowski@enquirer.com