Schools in the Wakatipu and Wanaka areas have broken the 4000-pupil mark for the first time, recording 4275 full-time equivalent pupils in this year's March Roll Return.
The data shows rolls in the area have increased 60.5% in the past decade - 8.4% in the past year alone.
In the neighbouring Central Otago area, school rolls have increased 13.66% in the past decade - 4.94% in the past year.
Mt Aspiring College principal Wayne Bosley, of Wanaka, said the forecast for the foreseeable future was for rolls to continue growing.
He said the school's roll had grown ‘‘a massive'' 123% since 2000, from 385 pupils to 857 pupils.
Mr Bosley said keeping up with the growth was challenging, but it was a positive challenge.
"We're working hand in hand with them to support the growth in our community.
"We've currently got building happening right now. We've got renovations to one block going on; we're rebuilding another; we're in the late planning stages for a ‘growth' block which we will begin building sometime later this year; and we're also in the throes of completing a campus-wide plan that will allow for future growth.''
Mr Bosley said the school now had to look very strategically at how it would expand to accommodate the growing number of pupils, without building classroom blocks on the school's playing fields.
"Our green fields are obviously very important to us and our community.
"The ministry have come to the party and have supported us in coming up with buildings and blocks that don't increase the school's footprint hugely.
"It may be that, in the future, we grow upwards rather than outwards, as part of the solution.
Wakatipu High School principal Steven Hall said his school's roll had gone from 591 in 2000, to 840 this year.
As a result, a new school was being built in Queenstown to accommodate the increasing roll.
"We move into the new school in 2018. It will hold 1200 pupils, but we will reach that capacity within a couple of years of moving in - we already know that.''
He said the school was already planning with the ministry to build on to the new site as soon as they move in.
Mr Hall said a significant amount of the roll growth was caused "simply'' by a flood of families flowing into the area from "all over the place''.
"People are coming from all over New Zealand - Auckland, Christchurch - and overseas as well.
"Queenstown just keeps growing and growing.''
Hawea Flat Primary School principal Sue Heath said her roll had increased from 51 pupils in 2000 to 204 this year.
She estimated the roll would reach about 230 by the end of this year, and believed next year's roll growth would be even higher.
She said the school was under increasing pressure to keep up with demand, and hoped two new prefabricated classrooms arriving next week would help.‘‘That will certainly help, because currently we have a class working in a break-out space.
"If the growth continues at the rate that it has over the last 5-10 years, I can see we're certainly going to need more teaching spaces.''
She said the school was liaising with the ministry to get more classroom spaces built during the next few years.
In the coming years, large parts of many schools in the Wakatipu, Wanaka and Central Otago areas would become construction sites, she said.
"It seems to be a district-wide trend. All the schools in our area are all growing.''
