BANGOR – The city is being rejuvenated. Dismal demographic trends and lackluster school enrollment projections notwithstanding, Bangor is seeing an influx of children for next year’s kindergarten classes and Superintendent Robert Ervin couldn’t be happier.

“Bangor is being revitalized with a younger, newer population,” he said this week.

So far, 264 children have registered for kindergarten – more than 100 over the number who had signed up last year at this time.

And with five more months left to register children for school, Ervin said he fully expects kindergarten enrollment on opening day to be more than 300 – higher than an earlier estimate projecting the number at 289 by next fall.

“I’m ecstatic! Bring ’em on!” he said.

Ervin’s optimistic projection is based on past history. Enrollment numbers between March and September typically jump between 80 and 100. For example, last year 159 children were registered for kindergarten by midsummer, but on Oct. 1 enrollment totaled 252. The year before that the number grew from 159 to 265. And in 2003, it increased from 205 to 270.

The growth spurt in registration numbers can’t be attributed to new advertising, according to Ervin. “Our methods of getting the word out haven’t changed one iota,” he said.

Of the 264 pupils registered so far, 80 are from the Downeast School area of Bangor, Ervin said. The remainder are spread throughout the other four schools.

“There’s nothing better than to have a rising enrollment in the elementary grades,” he said. “This couldn’t come at a better time because there’s shrinking enrollment at the high school.”

Education officials have been saying for years that the number of students statewide is projected to decline. Some communities already are feeling the pinch.

Former University of Maine professor John Skehan concluded last year in a report for the Bangor School Department that, because of the declining birth rate, the total number of students in the school system is projected to drop from 3,719 currently to 2,947 in 2015. Using birth rates from the Bureau of Vital Statistics at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and enrollment figures from Bangor, Skehan also projected that the number of students in kindergarten through grade five would drop from 1,451 currently to 1,374 in 2010 and 1,362 in 2015.

But Ervin said Skehan has told him that the number of births to Bangor residents has fluctuated quite a bit in recent years. This, as well as other unforeseen factors, could account for the discrepancy between projections and the actual count, the superintendent said.

Ervin said he isn’t sure why there’s a surge in the number of young children. He has checked out the addresses of children in the current and entering kindergarten classes, and they’re not coming from the high-end subdivisions that have cropped up in Bangor over the past few years, he said.

Still, Ervin has a couple of theories that could account for the boom.

Realtors have told him that 70 percent of Bangor’s new houses are being built by city residents themselves. They also have said that the price of gasoline is high enough so that the money people spend to drive in to work from outlying communities offsets the lower taxes that prompted them to live in those areas in the first place.

So, based on this information, Ervin figures that older residents are moving to their dream houses in the city’s high-end subdivisions, leaving their homes in the traditional neighborhoods to young families who are moving into the city.

He also wonders if the increasing cost of commuting has prompted people to reconsider where to settle. The cost of rural living isn’t what it used to be, he pointed out, noting that taxpayers in some outlying communities pay more for education than the $11.72 per thousand dollars assumed by Bangor residents.

Another reason that Bangor is seeing an influx of children is more obvious.

“Families want to be a part of the Bangor school system and the Bangor community,” he said. “People are coming here because it’s a great place to live.”