When a new $7 million elementary school opened in her neighborhood, Suzanne Gue figured her child would have at least a few years before the overcrowding started.

She was wrong.

Since the day it opened this fall, Sea Castle Elementary School in Miramar has overflowed with students. Enrollment is 1,105. School officials expected 868 students to attend Sea Castle, which was designed to accommodate 776 children.

“People were shocked when they walked in and saw there were 38 children in fifth-grade classes, fourth-grade, on down the line,” said Gue, vice chairwoman of the school’s parent advisory committee. “We’re busting at the seams already.”

Workers built four portable classrooms around Sea Castle to accommodate the overflow. But Gue and other parents, concerned that portables will not be enough in the future, are calling for another elementary school in their area.

District officials acknowledge the need and are looking for a site.

Southwest Broward County is growing so fast that even district demographers have trouble keeping up, Associate Superintendent Ray de la Feuilliez said.

“When you get a growth area like that, it’s difficult to project the housing starts,” de la Feuilliez said.

In the next few weeks, he plans to suggest building a second school in southwest Broward, in addition to one already planned for Cooper City.

De la Feuilliez said the two schools most likely will be financed through the same source: certificates of participation.

Certificates allow school districts to raise money without getting voter approval, as is necessary with general obligation bonds.

The district sets up a non-profit corporation that holds leases on the buildings to be constructed. Investors buy portions of the leases, which are the certificates. The School Board then uses property taxes and other revenues to pay the certificate holders a bi-annual rent. Eventually, the board becomes owner of the buildings.

De la Feuilliez said he would like to start construction of the two elementary schools at the same time. The estimated completion date would be 1992.

Sea Castle parents are anxious for a solution. Every week, three to five more children enroll at Sea Castle.

“The more kids who come in, you’re going to have to have additional lunch times,” said Terry McCormick, whose children are in first and third grades. “So you may have a lunch time that’s half an hour before it’s time to go home.”

Jimmy McHugh, 8, said he noticed the crowding during the first few weeks of school. In the beginning, there were about 40 students in his second-grade class, he said.

“It was too crowded, and there were a lot of people bugging the teacher until they made the portables,” Jimmy said.

To keep its accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the district must limit class sizes or provide aides to assist teachers.

Kindergarten classes are limited to 30 children with an aide, or 25 without. First- through third-grade classes can have up to 33 children with an aide, or 27 without. Fourth- and fifth-grade classes cannot exceed 32 children, Sea Castle Principal Fran Lewis said.

At Sea Castle, classes are so large that every teacher will have an aide by the end of this week, Lewis said.