Wasatch County School District officials on Thursday showed off their new high school under construction and considered a likely future of growth while K-12 enrollment across the state is projected to decline.

Superintendent Paul Sweat referenced a recently completed analysis by University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute that shows predicted enrollment trends for school districts in Utah.

While many districts are expected to stagnate or decline in student numbers, Wasatch County almost certainly will be a big exception.

“After two decades of strong growth, enrollment projections indicate Utah’s schools will experience a period of enrollment decline,” the institute’s report states. “Projections indicate enrollment will decline 0.6% per year on average from 2023 to 2033.”

For Summit County, this means a predicted decrease of 1,199 students from 2020 to 2060. In Salt Lake County, it means a loss of 1,874 students.

But Wasatch County is expected to grow 50%, a higher rate than any other county and a projected influx of 4,050 students.

“If you realize that we only have about 7,500 students right now, that’s a really significant number,” Sweat said. “It’s not a surprise to us, but we want to make sure that people understand why we’ve been doing what we’re doing and that it’s important for our board to continue with the plan.”

Earlier this year, the school district went through Utah’s truth-in-taxation process to maintain last year’s tax rates even with increasing property values. Some public comments at the time suggested the district was out to pocket collections. District representatives said the change would be necessary to keep up with the growth of Wasatch County.

The district looks 20 years into the future to predict what updates, changes and buildings it will need to make in its Future Schools Project master plan. While its new high school is already under construction and on schedule to open in fall 2026, the plan notes the need for more facilities in the near future.

In the next five years, the district plans to replace or remodel Midway Elementary School. In the next five to 10 years, it plans to implement those plans and prepare to build a new middle school. In 10-20 years, it plans to have the middle school completed.

The policy institute, Sweat said, advised districts with anticipated growth like Wasatch County’s to make appropriate preparations.

“We thought that was an opportunity for us to remind some of you and let others know maybe for the first time that there has been some robust activity taking place in Wasatch County School District,” he said.

And as the district builds its plan for the future, construction is well underway on the yet-to-be-named high school.

Though it may not look like much to the uninformed eye, the blocks, cement and rebar poured and laid at 1000 W 100 S in Heber City will soon be a school campus where the next generations of Midway and rural Wasatch County areas will graduate.

“You want to build a school where the kids live,” Sweat said. “The boundaries haven’t been decided yet, but primarily it’s going to be the west side of Heber City, Midway and then other areas of this county.”

Sweat said while the school won’t be constructed out of the cheapest materials available, the district chose to build the school at the lowest cost possible for a facility built to last.

Curtis Milner, the project’s principal architect, estimated it will be six to eight decades before the school needs considerable maintenance.

He explained how he designed the school with the nearby Heber Creeper train in mind.

A cubic clock will hang in the middle of the commons area resembles Central Station in Glasgow, Scotland, and exposed metal trusses that line the roof work with the spacious atmosphere imitate the character of a train station, he said.

The top of the doorway students will pass through walking to and from the bus is adorned with a sign that reads “Arrivals” and “Departures.”

“In the 1920s, the train stop in the Heber Valley was the highest capacity livestock station in the entire country,” Sweat said. “It goes back to the history of what eventually became the Heber Creeper and that’s what we remember in our lifetime as kids, and now it’s the Heber Valley Historic Railroad.”

Though the school’s auditorium currently is little more than an orchestra pit in the ground and classrooms walls only go waist high, it is taking shape and — according to Sweat — doing so without any major budgetary changes.