What is the feasibility study?

RThe feasibility study is a report created annually by the HCPSS Office of School Planning that is presented to the Board of Education, usually in June. It summarizes trends and gives projections for enrollment at each school as well as at each school level and by regions.  It gives recommendations for how growth and changing enrollment can be handled through building additional capacity, redistricting, or through changes in programs or the addition or moving of relocatable classrooms.  

From this year's feasibility study

"Enrollment projections are a valuable planning tool to help predict the need for new or expanded schools and determine how many teachers are needed each year in each school and grade. Enrollment projections are also used for facility planning purposes to estimate the expected needs for each school, including the potential for relocatable classrooms, new seats, and removal/placement of regional programs. Each year, the Board reviews the capital planning options and boundary adjustment considerations through a feasibility study. The report has four goals:
• Inform the long-term planning process.
• Facilitate discussion for decisions that may lay ahead.
• Provide strategic information to the school system.
• Prepare for school boundary adjustments.
The Office of School Planning presents the student enrollment projection, projection trends, comprehensive strategies for the capital improvement program (i.e., timing, location and number of seats in additions) and the need for attendance area adjustments anticipated within the ten-year Long-Range Master Plan. This is primarily an analysis of needs and potential strategies to address those needs. Any plans examined in this document may only be implemented through the Board’s approval of the capital budget and/or attendance area changes. Funding constraints may not allow capital projects recommended in this document to proceed as recommended. Annual enrollment projections are also used in short-term decision-making, such as determining staffing, school supplies and allocating relocatables." (pg 4)

Ultimately, the board decides what action to take based on the recommendations given.  Funding (or the lack there of) plays a big part in whether recommended projects remain on the long range plan or if they get pushed farther out, or off the list completely.  

The projections in this document always start with official September 30 enrollment numbers from the previous year.  They then project changes to enrollment based on apartment turnover, resales, new construction, and "other factors."  Residential construction is only considered "new" for one year.  The OSP's "other factors" are a little less clear, but the feasibility study lists, "all other contributing factors to change in enrollment between years for each school and includes projected change due to cohort size rising to the next level, changes to cohort survival rates, changes in birth counts from 5 years ago, change in birth to kindergarten survival rates, adjustments to out of district counts (including known exemptions at time of projection), students moving into an attendance area between birth and five years old, and adjustments based on previous projection accuracy." (pg 9)  If you look at this year's chart, as well as at the last few year's charts, for many schools this is listed as a negative number.  

These projections don't take into account enrollment changes that happen throughout the school year, unless they remain into the September 30 official enrollment number for the next school year.  In the last couple of years, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the resulting shift of many families to homeschooling or private school has had a marked effect on the accuracy of enrollment projections.  The 2019 redistricting as well as decreasing birthrates were also pointed to as affecting projection accuracy.  In years past, they have boasted of a good level of accuracy on the county level, but averages can obscure outliers. 

Information from this report is also shared with the county council to inform their allocations for new residential development under the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO).  In theory, APFO should help to give the school system time to address capacity issues before additional residential development comes online (it doesn't really).  Why is it also listed in this document as something slowing down development and pushing out the need for addressing capacity? (pg 2) 

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