it's not exactly a secret that Houston county is growing, but the specific numbers might come as a surprise.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates from 2010 to 2017 Houston county's population grew by close to 10 percent.
That can sound like an abstraction, but it shouldn't. Behind those statistics are real people who live and work and go to school right in Houston County.
And in some schools, that growth is keeping school district leaders on their toes.
"It's on our mind often," said Houston County Board of Education superintendent Mark Scott.
To help put what Scott is talking about into context, let's break down some of the numbers in one particularly affected area.
According to the Georgia Department of Education, 703 kids went to school at Bonaire Elementary School in 2015. Now 854 are enrolled. That's a nearly 18 percent jump, and it's not the only school seeing these changes.
Over the same time period, Matthew Arthur Elementary School in Kathleen saw a nearly 17 percent increase in enrollment, from 663 kids in 2015 to 797 in 2018.
Beth McLaughlin said most schools in the district are have somewhere between 400 and 600 students enrolled.
Those numbers come from the state department of education and the school district.
So how does the district manage it all?
"We're always trying to look at anything that might give us a sense of what's coming ahead," said superintendent Mark Scott.
He said the district uses past enrollment and census data to predict upcoming enrollment levels and then staffs teachers accordingly.
"If we've got some places where the class size is really low and others where they're high, we'll make those moves," said Scott. "We end up doing some of those every year."
He says mobile classrooms, perhaps more commonly known as trailer classrooms, are in use at Bonaire Elementary and they're visible at Matt Arthur as well.
However, Scott says all classes in the district within the state's recommended guidelines for student to teacher ratios and he adds that a long term solution — a brand new school — could be on the way.
"It's going to have an impact on a great number of kids for a long time," said Scott.
The superintendent says no site has been chosen for the new school yet, but he hopes to present one to the school board in November with the goal of breaking ground some time in the spring of 2019.
According to the state department of education, Bonaire Elementary's overall performance beats 57 percent of the other schools in the state but is lower than its district's overall performance.
Matthew Arthur outperforms nearly 90 percent of other schools and its district's overall performance.