Greenville County continues to grow, and the public school district must keep pace.
Greenville County Schools stands as the largest school district in South Carolina, with more than 76,000 students and 13,500 employees. It also ranks as the 42nd largest district in the United States.
District officials closely monitor growth and development trends in the area to project future student enrollment and guide their planning decisions.
Education enrollment
Greenville County has experienced year-over-year residential growth for several decades. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county’s estimated population in July 2025 was 583,125.
The school district has historically mirrored this growth, except for the current school year. According to GCS, student enrollment decreased from 78,115 in August 2024 to 76,571 in August 2025. The district’s planning and demographics department predicts that the student population will further fall to 75,760 in the upcoming 2026-27 school year.
Drew Brittain, the school district’s planning and demographics director, pointed to several factors that caused the population reduction, including the recent drop in Hispanic student enrollment. GCS grew by only 36 new Hispanic students in 2025, a significant decrease from the annual average of 971 students over the past three years.
The decrease in enrollment can also be linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, GCS had a slightly smaller kindergarten cohort percentage in fall 2025 than in previous years due to the low number of births during the pandemic. At the same time, the larger high school classes that came in after 2020 are graduating, creating a population imbalance.
“We’re not necessarily losing our students, but just the influx of new students that we historically had did not occur in 2025,” Brittain said.
Greenville County Schools plans to complete staffing adjustments for the 2026-27 school year in response to the projected decrease in student enrollment. While some staffing positions will be removed, the district has assured that no employees will be laid off. Instead, positions vacated by teachers who leave the district or retire will be left unfilled.
Enrollment projections indicate the student population will begin to level out over the next few years. Brittain said Greenville County’s birth rate, which has steadily increased since 2020, suggests the district’s population will start to grow again in the future.
Population projections
Several variables are used to predict the school district’s future student enrollment patterns, including ongoing housing development in Greenville County. The planning and demographics department tracks single-family and multi-family building permits, subdivision proposals and utility expansions to monitor growth.
“We’re looking at planning law … like the county’s comprehensive plan as well as the municipalities,” Brittain said. “Where are they projecting their development, or where are they targeting an area that is going to be built for single-family housing, because that’s where we’re going to get the majority of our student yields.”
GCS continues to see considerable housing development in the southern portion of Greenville County as more large-scale single-family subdivisions come online. Fountain Inn has specifically been identified as one of the fastest-growing enrollment areas in the school district.
Enrollment projections can also be impacted by various economic factors, such as job creation within the school district’s attendance area. Brittain and his team monitor major job announcements to help determine where population growth may occur within the district. For example, more residents are expected to move to Piedmont in the coming years as Isuzu and other companies bring new job opportunities to the area.
In addition, demographic changes in Greenville County’s population can influence student growth patterns. While the county typically has an aging population, there has been an influx of young adults aged 22-39 in recent years. This population cohort is more likely to start families and add new students to the school district.
“Some areas will experience – we call it aging out. So the population in an area may start becoming older, and then they’re less likely to have younger children,” Brittain said. “Over time, that’ll regenerate, younger families begin purchasing that home. That we can’t really track with necessarily development. You’re having to track what you’re seeing in enrollment trends.”
The planning and demographics department also monitors outside enrollment opportunities in the public school district’s attendance area. According to GCS, charter and homeschool enrollment have continued to grow over the past several years in Greenville County. Brittain said they are constantly trying to determine how an influx of these alternative school options will affect GCS, whether it will help absorb growth or pull from the district’s enrollment.
Classroom capacity
District leaders must ensure that the school system has the capacity to meet future enrollment growth across its attendance area. GCS currently operates more than 100 schools and facilities, including 52 elementary schools, 19 middle schools, 15 high schools, career centers, child development centers, administrative buildings and speciality facilities.
“We want to ensure that we have adequate, appropriate spacing for all our students,” Brittain said. “At the end of the day, we’re here to serve students of Greenville County Schools.”
In some cases, GCS might choose to open a new facility to alleviate the burden on other schools in the surrounding area. A recent example of strategy was the opening of Reedy Laurel Elementary School in Greenville in August 2025. Students were reassigned to the new elementary school from eight neighboring schools.
Projects to expand existing school facilities can also be completed to accommodate future capacity needs based on student growth. For example, a 94,000-square-foot addition was built for Fountain Inn High School, increasing the school’s capacity by 1,250 new seats. The $48.5 million facility addition was completed before the start of the 2025-26 school year.
The school district’s facility projects are planned several years in advance and outlined in a long-range facilities plan, which is revised annually. GCS Board of Trustees recently approved the first reading of the updated planning document and capital improvement program during its committee of the whole meeting on April 14.
The long-range facilities plan includes several projects in the southern portion of Greenville County, including the planned conversion of Fountain Inn Elementary into a K-8 school. The project will add seats for middle-level grades and expand elementary capacity in the area. The new K-8 school is scheduled to open in 2028.
An additional $3.2 million is also being allocated for site acquisitions in the updated capital improvement program. This would raise the school district’s total balance for property acquisitions to approximately $32.4 million.
At the April 14 meeting, Superintendent Burke Royster explained that the district is actively working to locate available property in areas it projects will experience future growth for potential long-range facility projects. He said that a recommended property purchase in the southern portion of Greenville County near Fountain Inn is expected to go before the board for approval in the near future.
“There’s obviously going to be no more land created,” Royster said. “The longer we wait to purchase property, the greater the price and the greater the likelihood we cannot buy it in large tracts, which is always the less expensive way to buy.”
Greenville County population vs Greenville County Schools enrollment (Graph)
Year: 1980
- Greenville County: 287,913
- Greenville County Schools: 51,775
Year: 1990
- Greenville County: 320,167
- Greenville County Schools: 51,594
Year: 2000
- Greenville County: 379,616
- Greenville County Schools: 60,101
Year: 2010
- Greenville County: 451,225
- Greenville County Schools: 69,942
Year: 2020
- Greenville County: 525,534
- Greenville County Schools: 73,897
Year: 2021
- Greenville County: 533,834
- Greenville County Schools: 76,513
Year: 2022
- Greenville County: 547,950
- Greenville County Schools: 77,515
Year: 2023
- Greenville County: 558,036
- Greenville County Schools: 77,888
Year: 2024
- Greenville County: 570,745
- Greenville County Schools: 78,115
Year: 2025
- Greenville County: 583,125
- Greenville County Schools: 76,571
Source: Greenville County Schools, U.S. Census
Quotes
“We’re not only large in population, but we’re quite large in total square mileage, right? So what’s happening in the north may not be a direct indicator of what’s happening in downtown Greenville or towards Greer.” – Drew Brittain, planning and demographics director for Greenville County Schools
“Historically, we’ve had year-over-year growth. That did not occur this year and we anticipate kind of leveling out over the next year or two.” – Drew Brittain, planning and demographics director for Greenville County Schools
School choice
Greenville County Schools offers a school choice program to its students. This program allows parents to request that their child attend another school outside their assigned school, which is determined based on their home address.
Drew Brittain, planning and demographics director for Greenville County Schools, explained that the district increased its school choice population during the 2025-26 school year due to more seats being available with the recent decrease in overall student population. According to GCS, a total of 10,364 students attended a school of their choice in the 2025-26 school year.
