It’s Growing Season’: Navarro ISD adds students faster than expected

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today
Cindy Aguirre

(Geronimo) — Navarro ISD’s historic enrollment milestone of 3,000 students has already been eclipsed just days after the district issued a press release marking the achievement.

Superintendent Dr. Mandy Epley confirmed that enrollment continues to climb, with several more students added in the days following the announcement.

“We definitely know that the housing market is in an affordable range for young families and so we are seeing those elementary numbers shoot up.  Yesterday, we added eight kids from the number we published the day before. We are already addressing that with our long-range plan in the 2024 bond that our voters generously passed,” said Dr. Epley.

To accommodate this expansion, the district is moving forward with key bond projects, including the completion of the new Navarro High School, scheduled to open to students in January 2026 followed by the completion of the new Athletics Complex. This new campus, designed for 1,100 students, will be followed by a refresh of the current high school into a new junior high. Additionally, construction on a second elementary school on Martindale Road is currently in the final design and permitting stages with the City of Seguin and scheduled to break ground later in the semester and open in August 2027. The district’s Long Range Facilities Master Planning Committee will reconvene on August 20 to address enrollment increases over the next 10 years with key considerations to include expanding the junior high school.

The latest demographic report provided to the district in April 2025 projected a peak enrollment of 2,949. However, the data announced this week showed the district at 3,033 students.

Dr. Epley said the milestone underscores the urgency for facility expansion. In addition to the new high school set to open in January 2026, she says the district is planning for continued long-term growth – growth that includes additional space and resources needed to serve the projected 250 to 350 new students expected each year over the next decade.

“Going into this planning season, we will be proposing for the board in January a bond in May and that will address some requests for additional classrooms at what is currently the high school which will become the junior high because we will exceed by the demographers projections in 2034-35, 1,400 students at that  junior high so to be currently as of yesterday, at 694 –it’s a very stark realization of how quickly this area is going to grow and we will need to serve those student’s needs,” said Dr. Epley.

Dr. Epley says every new student represents a family who has chosen Navarro ISD, and with that also comes an increased responsibility to provide not only the space but the resources and staff to support them.

“We are also looking at individual needs of students. Do they need some acceleration? Do they need some special education support? Are we looking at more and yes, we are as students coming to our district – students with needs that are language based needs and so, when I see these numbers come, it’s my job along as with my team to communicate out to all of our stakeholders that this is something that is going to require us to continue to plan and to continue to look at how we are using our budget,” said Dr. Epley.

Dr. Epley noted that growth is already visible across campuses, from crowded car lines and fuller classrooms to the steady increase in faces at school events. She says this rapid growth highlights what district leaders are calling a “destination district.”

“It’s a self-fulling prophecy because they will keep coming. I know they will, and we want to be ready for them. We don’t want the narrative to be that we were surprised, or we were behind. We have the demographer; I spoke with him providing an update. We do that every quarter and that’s pretty common in a fast growth district,” said Dr. Epley.

District officials say the jump in enrollment perfectly illustrates and fits in line with this year’s district theme of “It’s Growing Season.”

Navarro stakeholders also interested in keeping up with the fast-paced growth are encouraged to visit the district’s website at Navarroisd.us

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