A demographics study holds important information that will help Springfield Public Schools make decisions about possibly closing two elementary schools.
While a decision regarding Pershing and Robberson elementary schools will likely be made over the next few months, the same study poses questions SPS officials and school board members will consider over the next 10 years. The study also draws conclusions that counter current philosophies about how Springfield is growing.
Earlier in December, Springfield Board of Education members asked their first public questions about the study produced by Davis Demographics. The 190-page study analyzed Springfield’s public school enrollment, aligned addresses using geographic information systems (GIS) data to make density maps, and made projections about what school populations would look like over the next decade.
Over the next few months, and starting with the board's next meeting Dec. 19, board members will get more opportunities to dive deeper into the study with its researchers, learning how they collected the data and made predictions, and whether they can resolve unanswered questions.
Key predictions call for some declines
Deputy Superintendent of Operations Travis Shaw said the study was done with a few schools in mind that were connected to bond issues. The study offers the chance to analyze how well each school building is being used, using projections to show which buildings could be either crowded or underused in the future.
“We have some schools that are going to be bursting at the seams, and others that won’t, so what does that look like from a boundary perspective,” Shaw said. “That’s really the overarching theme behind the study. There were surprises for sure in some areas.”
Some of those findings and predictions were surprising, based on reactions during a November school board meeting:
- Overall K-12 student enrollment for SPS is projected to decline from 24,132 students to 23,853 by 2034.
- Despite the possible overall decline, a large population of elementary students are expected to increase middle school enrollment significantly.
- Middle schools are currently seeing their lowest enrollments in four years, and those classes are projected to drop the number of public high school students in Springfield to about 7,000 by the ‘27-’28 school year.
- Of the 1,835 active or planned residential construction projects across the city, most of them will be built in the Gray (southwestern Springfield) and Hickory Hills (eastern Springfield) zones.
The study also offered year-by-year enrollment predictions of every school over the next decade, to 2033. Those predictions show high schools such as Kickapoo and Glendale, considered popular and high-draw across the community, would see much more open space over the next 10 years.
Lorne Woods, a senior project manager with Davis Demographics, said that one of the main reasons for the student population decline deals with a larger-than-normal number of students aging out of the school.
“You have a larger population in the area right now,” Woods said. “The subsequent grades behind it are not as large as the average size.”
Some board members were curious about how the south side high schools would see enrollment declines, in light of their perceived popularity and census numbers showing population growth for the Springfield region — the low middle-school enrollment did not appear to counter those trends, they said.
Board member Maryam Mohammadkhani questioned why Kickapoo was projected to drop to about 87% capacity by 2033, noting that the school has a waiting list for students requesting transfers.
Mohammadkhani said the district has an open enrollment policy, where students may apply for transfers to schools outside of their sending zones, within certain limitations.
School board member Kelly Byrne also noted how real estate professionals across Springfield report about Kickapoo’s perceived popularity among people buying homes. After the meeting, Byrne said he felt like a lot of his questions went unanswered, and that the study didn’t take market desirability into account.
“One of the things they understand in real estate is about where people are wanting to live, and that is predominantly driven by school districts,” Byrne said after the meeting. “Several of our schools with that reputation consistently have been projected to have significant declines, and I’m trying to hone in on what he thought the reason for that was.”
Study focuses on where K-12 students will live
According to a review from the Hauxeda, the study makes predictions within which school boundaries students will live, not which schools they will actually attend.
The study used five layers of geographic data for its predictions, including street addresses, neighborhoods, planned residential developments, student population data such as ethnic and socioeconomic status, and more. It also took birth rates into account for projecting Springfield's kindergarten registration about five years later.
Two other variables played roles in the predictions, according to the report:
- Mobility within the district, tracking how likely students were to move to a different school boundary.
- The number of students neighborhoods could house.
Using a series of matrices, the study lists current enrollment by school in each one of the zones where its students live. According to the matrix for high schools, four of the five public high schools in Springfield draw at least 80% of the students who live within their boundaries:
- Central: 56%*
- Glendale: 88.7%
- Hillcrest: 89%
- Kickapoo: 92.9%
- Parkview: 81.4%
* Central’s percentage runs low because of its International Baccalaureate program, which draws high-achieving students from each of the five high school zones in Springfield.
Of Kickapoo’s 2,026 students, data shows 1,883 actually live inside the school’s zone. Six live in Central’s, 16 live in Glendale’s, 4 live in Hillcrest’s and 85 live in Parkview’s, while 32 live outside of the Springfield district completely.
A report of enrollment in private schools was also included. According to PSS Private School Universe Survey data for 2021-22, 3,687 students attended one of Greene County’s 15 private schools. That data does not specify how many of those students reside in the SPS district, however.
Using GIS-equipped analytics developed by the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), the researchers also were able to identify a districtwide student capture rate of about 75%.
The study used another matrix, arranged by elementary schools, to analyze which elementary school neighborhoods either gained or lost students by grade. That data was used to develop formulas about student mobility, such as open-enrollment transfers, that were applied in the predictions.
While the study predicts an overall decline, it also predicts stability for lower grades. Woods said the district’s expansion of pre-kindergarten programs has helped stave off declines otherwise predicted by birth rates.
Use in the future
The Springfield Board of Education will go over the data-loaded study at greater length in the future. Board member Judy Brunner said during the meeting, joking, that she gasped to discover she had sent 190 pages to her printer.
“I was pleased when I read in the report that we have a stable population, because I don’t know if I would have known that otherwise,” Brunner said during the meeting. “I was particularly intrigued by where children are, and what ZIP code they are being born in.”
Shaw said that it will help inform future decisions about elementary school boundaries, with goals of reducing overcrowding at some schools. The cost of the study was about $79,000, Shaw said during the meeting.
As discussions continue, Byrne said the study will be a useful source of information to compare with others when evaluating school boundaries. He also said that he hopes the researchers can either better address growth predictions based on market trends, or find a way to add that data.
“There is a human element, and one of the obvious ones that it didn’t seem to acknowledge is where do people want to go to school,” Byrne said. “People move all the time, for different reasons, to different schools, whether it’s intentional or not.”
