After a few years of enrollment declines, the number of students enrolled at Wheaton Warrenville South High School has increased, unlike our crosstown rivals.

Enrollment figures released by Community Unit School District 200 via email earlier this semester show that South’s enrollment this year is 1,834 students, which is up from 1,802 last year. That’s a 1.8 percent increase – and it reverses an overall 9.0 percent decline in South’s enrollment between 2018 and 2023. That same correspondence attributed the higher enrollment to the following factors: immigrants to the U.S., several new developments in Warrenville, and the construction of the Naper Commons subdivision at the far south end of the district.

The recent increase in immigrants to the U.S. is a story that is as old as our nation. However, the growth from developments in Warrenville and Naperville is new. A City of Warrenville news release from this past July revealed that a special census recently found that Warrenville’s total population had increased by 12 percent since 2020, due to several newer developments, including Everton, Lexington Trace, Arden, Westlyn, and Riverview West.

Also, South’s increased enrollment can be linked to the new developments in Naper Commons. Although the 227-home Naper Commons subdivision, which Naperville city officials approved in 2021, is inside Naperville’s city limits, it’s also inside CUSD 200’s boundaries. It was constructed on vacant land at the far north end of the Nokia campus on Naperville Road, and it’s immediately south of the Danada Forest Preserve.

There are 15 students who attend WWSHS who live in Naper Commons, and three of those are new to South for this school year. Naper Commons isn’t yet completed, so those numbers could increase over time.

The story is different at Wheaton North, which as recently as 2018 had 114 more students than South. In 2018, North had 2,096 students enrolled, to South’s 1,982. However, North has seen a 12.3 percent decline in its enrollment between 2018 and 2024, and as of this year, North’s enrollment is 1,838. And unlike South’s recent growth this year, North’s enrollment was exactly flat between last year and this year at 1,838.

What does the future look like? Many neighborhoods in the CUSD 200 boundaries were built decades ago. Our district’s enrollment will mostly depend on the sales of existing homes to families with school-age children.

CUSD 200 board member, John Rutledge, who previously served for 10 years as a Wheaton City Councilman, said in an interview that he doesn’t see the likelihood of additional residential development occurring within our district’s boundaries. Rutledge shared: “We are basically built out. There are places here and there for a little bit of development, like along Route 59 in Warrenville, and we recently added…houses in Naperville right down there in the neighborhood of the Danada Forest Preserve. But what little development there is is really marginal, I would say. It’s here and there, maybe a spot. We’re really up against our neighbors – it’s not like, say, an Oswego or a Yorkville that has room around it to expand and grow. We’re pretty much landlocked at this point.”

However, Rutledge noted that while the district is not going to “expand out into the cornfield,” he did acknowledge that “our enrollment has seemingly turned up.”