Population Growth

STORY BY DYLAN COLEMAN »

espite the rumors, Eudora, will in fact not being as big as everyone seems.

Before telling Freshman Clynt Sarlls that Eudora is not expanding bigger, he explains his thinking on the size of Eudora.

“I honestly think Eudora is getting bigger and bigger, I believe we’re going to have to expand things in the school in a few years.”

Little did Sarlls know, that the numbers are ranging around the same per class size at Eudora.

“After looking at the numbers you gave me,” Sarlls says “I am shocked. I always thought that the classes below me were growing. They are around the same as the current high school grades right now.”

Right now, The Eudora school district has 1,773 students in total in Pre-K through 12th grade. 489 of these students are in the high school currently. This shows that there is 1,284 students Pre-K through 8th grade. That averages around 143 students per grade. This number is only 12 more than the current freshman class.

Vice Principal Joe Zlatnik explains how if the number of students grow more, than there will have to be a possibility of growing larger.

“If the numbers hold and we continue to grow eventually we’ll outgrow the facilities we have. Then you look building new buildings, or adding on to the building we have.” Zlatnik said.

But, even though the numbers are ranging around the same in our school district, Eudora itself is currently slightly changing.

According to worldpopulationreview.com, Eudora’s growth was going up through years 2013-2016 but, when recorded in 2017, Eudora’s growth was actually decreasing 1.23% That percentage accounts to losing 79 people in the City of Eudora.

Zlatnik states that no matter what happens, he believes that Eudora’s community support will stay the same.

“I think Eudora invested heavily in community when they decided to build one elementary school.” Zlatnik says. “It really help build a sense of community all the way [from] kindergarten to 12th grade. I think as long as we continue to have one elementary school the sense of community will be there.”

Sarlls believes no matter what happens to the numbers in the classes, or our tiny little village, the bond between our community will stay.

“I think no matter how we are growing, or not growing right now, I think Eudora will always be the way we are: together as a community” Sarlls states.