Faced with increased enrollment, a school expansion project and filling both the superintendent and high school principal positions, the Westbrook School Committee has its hands full planning for the next school year.

On Monday, during one of its final meetings of this school year, the School Committee voted to approve three measures that they hope will address the capacity and future growth issues.

First, the department is leasing two additional portable classrooms to be housed at Congin and Canal elementary schools. Saccarappa Elementary School, which is the focus of an expansion and renovation project, already has two portables. Canal has one.

The portables will be paid for by the department’s fiscal year 2016-17 contingency funds.

The committee also approved hiring an additional elementary school teacher in third grade at Canal Elementary School. According to the meeting documents, the teacher will be hired for one year only based on increased enrollment of 72 students.

There are currently three classrooms with class sizes of 24 students. The additional teacher will allow for class sizes of 18 students, which the department finds more “reasonable.” The additional class will be housed in the portable classroom.

Enrollment and growth projections, as well as the work to design the expansion and renovation of both Saccarappa Elementary School and Westbrook Middle School, have been affected by the recent growth in Westbrook – especially at the Blue Spruce Farm development.

The subdivision off Spring Street will bring more students to Saccarappa, located on Huntress Avenue, and the recent proposal for a Phase 2 of the development has school officials worried.

The current school expansion plans call for adding 12 classrooms at Saccarappa, and completing the third floor wing of six classrooms at Westbrook Middle School.

Also on Monday, the School Committee voted to hire Portland-based Planning Decisions to do its own enrollment study of the entire city. The company has also done a study for Risbara Bros., the Blue Spruce Farm developer, for the first phase of its development and is conducting another for Phase 2, but those only look at the specific potential impact of the development area.

Superintendent of Schools Marc Gousse, whose last day is June 30, said this week that the study will go “a long way” to help guide the district, but that the future can’t be predicted, especially as the housing market is hot.

“When projects keep getting approved, that’s a game changer,” he said, adding that he believes it’s a good time for the School Committee and City Council to host a workshop on community growth.

According to meeting documents, Planning Decisions plans to have the study completed by sometime in July, which will benefit the school expansion building committee. The study will cost $6,500.

The company requires the school department to send English Language Learner enrollment data for the past two years, while the city’s Planning Department supplies past and future housing development data, including the number of units and types of units left to be built in the community. Phase 2 of Blue Spruce Farm proposes more than 300 units – a mix made up of mostly one- and two-bedroom apartments, condominiums and single-family homes. The developer has said that 18 of the apartment units would most likely be three-bedroom units.

Prior to School Committee approval, concerns were raised about a possible conflict of interest in hiring Planning Decisions, since the company was also working for the Blue Spruce Farm developer. However, School Committee member Veronica Bates said Wednesday that the committee decided to hire Planning Decisions based on it being the most qualified. The committee had looked throughout New England, she said.

The portable classrooms, Bates said, are meant to be a temporary measure, and there is hope they won’t be needed if Westbrook residents approve a school expansion project this November.

“These are rentals,” she said. “I can say that no one wants them. But at this time they are necessary.”

Westbrook City Councilor Anna Turcotte, who is also on the school building committee, said this week that her family has personally felt “the overcrowding and aging building pains” of the city’s elementary schools. Her two children just finished first and third grades at Saccarappa Elementary School.

She said her family loves the teachers, staff and neighborhood feel of the school, and that careful planning and research has gone into the work of the building committee, including the population study.

“The community concerns over the spike in the city’s growth is at the top of the list of things we are considering and the population study drives a lot of the variables in the process,” she said, adding that school officials and the architect at Harriman Associates, which is designing the school renovation plans, recommended Planning Decisions.

“I look forward to the next few months when the study is finalized and the pace of the work accelerates to proceed with this very, very needed project,” she said.

The school building committee meets every two weeks, but Turcotte said they may meet weekly once the enrollment study is completed.

Also on the horizon for the School Committee is hiring a replacement for Gousse, who is taking over as superintendent of the Mount Desert Island Regional School System in Bar Harbor. He signed a five-year contract with the district in early June.

Most recently, the board voted to hire Maine School Management to help structure the search for a new superintendent, and the school committee is now in the process of selecting an interview committee.

The district must also find a replacement for Westbrook High School Principal Jon Ross, who is also leaving June 30. He will be the new superintendent/principal in Acton.

Peter Lancia, Westbrook’s director of teaching and learning, is charged with hiring Ross’s successor.