It’s hard to know whether to be excited or dismayed by enrollment at the newly opened, $12 million J.H. Hines Elementary School, especially considering that enrollment at East Waco schools has been flagging for years. No one expected a school built for future growth would have already exceeded capacity a month after opening.

Certainly, we wonder about those who planned the $172.5 million school bond package that was passed by voters in 2008, calling for (among much else) closing the old J.H. Hines campus and nearby Doris Miller Elementary and replacing them with this campus. Should someone have not seen this explosion in enrollment coming? Frankly, we’ve never heard of something like this happening.

On the other hand, who expected federal officials to finally lose patience and yank funding to Parkside Village low-income apartments, sparking an infusion of residents over the river and into East Waco? And it’s understandable that parents who transferred their children elsewhere previously would now want them to take advantage of a new campus.

In any case, the demographics are astonishing. The combined populations of the two closed schools were expected to be 550 this year, yet more than 700 kids have shown up at the Hines campus, originally built to accommodate a future of some 650 students.

In short, welcome to the future. It’s already here, promising new headaches and new possibilities for the Waco Independent School District, especially considering the campus has no room for portable buildings and some kids are now being bused to other schools from a campus originally expected to offer some elbow room.

If a new campus has made students and parents more excited about education, excellent. This may be a good problem to have, especially after bad community feelings that exploded with the closing of G.L. Wiley Middle School in East Waco amid sagging student numbers and test scores in 2008. That blowup, we believe, reflected a disconnect between the community and school leadership. The episode casts long shadows over the area to this day, something our leaders should remember in all they do and consider.

But for us, the surprising enrollment level at Hines reveals something else: the enormous potential that we see in East Waco if both public and private investment comes to this long-neglected area of our city — something Waco Mayor Jim Bush, council member Wilbert Austin and county commissioner Lester Gibson have stressed. J.H. Hines Elementary School proves that if our leaders and others build and invest in this regard, plenty may come — possibly more than anyone ever expected.