Mars Area School District will continue to grow over the next 10 years, but at a rate significantly faster than what the state predicts, a new study shows.

While the state projects that Mars Area will grow by less than 1 percent per year through 2017, a consultant hired by the district predicts that enrollment will rise by an average of 10 percent per year, said Superintendent William Pettigrew.

Mars Area hired VanAmburg Associates, of Erie, to do a demographic study of the district, which enrolls about 3,000 students in Mars, Adams, Middlesex and Valencia.

A similar study done by the company in 1999 also showed faster growth than the state Department of Education had predicted. After six months of negotiations with the state, VanAmburg's numbers were accepted, and the district received a higher reimbursement on building projects based on the 1999 study.

Four external factors affect enrollment projections, David VanAmburg told the school board Dec. 4. He listed them as a new nonpublic school, home construction, a shift in migration patterns and projected births.

Because the state looks only at home construction for one or two years, Mr. VanAmburg said, he concentrated his research on migration patterns and births.

"What we are dealing with in your school district is the movement of everything north from the Pittsburgh area," he said. From 1980 to 2000, only two counties in southwestern Pennsylvania showed population growth -- Greene with 0.5 percent growth and Butler with 23.6 percent, he said.

The population of those age 19 and younger in the Mars Area School District grew from 3,284 in 1990 to 4,200 in 2000.

"It is significant. The numbers do not lie," he said. "What we saw from 1960 through 1980 through 2000 is continuing ... that increase is a continuous change for you."

First Published: December 23, 2007, 5:00 a.m.