K-12 Forecasting
& Planning
Build the enrollment projection models your district needs — and bring them in-house. Cohort-survival, student yield factors, birth rate trends, and board-ready demographic studies.
From Spreadsheet to Defensible Projection
Track B is the demographic forecasting track. Every session teaches a method you can apply immediately — not a software tool, but a repeatable analytical process your district can own and update every year without outside help.
By the end of three days, you will have built a complete multi-year enrollment projection using cohort-survival methodology, integrated residential development data, and structured a full demographic study ready to present to your board.
- Build a complete cohort-survival enrollment projection from raw data
- Calculate student yield factors by housing type
- Integrate residential pipeline data into growth projections
- Apply county birth rate trends to kindergarten forecasting
- Structure and present a board-ready demographic study
- Integrate demographic projections with GIS spatial layers
- Identify and document where projections are sensitive to assumptions
Who Should Attend Track B
- District planners who produce or manage enrollment forecasts
- Demographic analysts looking to deepen their methodology
- Facilities staff who need to connect forecasts to capital planning
- Research teams responsible for annual enrollment projections
- Anyone currently paying outside consultants for enrollment studies
That’s the average year-one consulting cost reduction reported by districts that attended SPC and brought enrollment forecasting in-house. Track B is where that capability is built.
The Full Three-Day Schedule
Day One · Tuesday, June 23
Keynote and foundations — cohort-survival methodology and student yield factor analysis
Opening Keynote: Connecting Enrollment Data to Facility Decisions
After this session you will understand how demographic trends, capital improvement cycles, and enrollment projections must be planned together — and why districts that separate these decisions consistently make expensive mistakes.
Cohort-Survival Methodology: From Concept to Calculation
After this session you will be able to build a complete cohort-survival enrollment projection from raw historical data, identify where projections are sensitive to assumption changes, and produce a multi-year forecast table.
Day Two · Wednesday, June 24
Growth planning — student yield factors, birth rate trends, and the long-range kindergarten pipeline
Student Yield Factors: How New Development Affects Enrollment
After this session you will be able to calculate student yield factors for different housing types in your district and apply them to residential pipeline data for growth-area enrollment projections.
Birth Rate Trends and Long-Range Kindergarten Forecasting
After this session you will be able to pull and interpret county birth rate data, identify trend inflection points, and integrate birth cohort analysis into your 10-year enrollment model.
Day Three · Thursday, June 25
Delivery — structuring a demographic study and integrating projections with GIS
Building a Board-Ready Demographic Study
After this session you will be able to structure a full district demographic study, document your methodology, and present enrollment projections in a format that holds up to scrutiny from school board members and community stakeholders.
Integrating Demographic Data with GIS Spatial Layers
After this session you will be able to link enrollment projections to ArcGIS Pro school attendance zones, produce a combined demographic and spatial analysis, and identify capacity pressure points by geography.
Chris Griego
Senior Vice President, K-12 Facilities, MGT · Tampa, FL
Track B Facilitator Keynote SpeakerChris Griego
Chris Griego is Senior Vice President of K-12 Facilities at MGT and one of the most experienced voices in the country on connecting demographic planning to facility investment decisions. Based in Tampa, he brings a local perspective to SPC26’s first East Coast edition. Chris opens the conference as keynote speaker before leading Track B through the full forecasting methodology — from raw cohort data to a finished demographic study ready for board presentation.
The problem he solves
Districts make capital investment decisions based on facility condition alone, with no connection to enrollment trajectories. Schools get renovated just as enrollment declines, or left deteriorating in exactly the areas that are growing fastest.
How he solves it
Chris teaches planners to layer capital improvement cycle data with enrollment forecasts and demographic trends, producing Master Plans that sequence facility investment to match where students will actually be.
Guest and Supporting Presenters
Guest Presenter · SPC24 Alumnus
Scott Torlucci — K-12 Demographer and Facilities Planner
Scott returns for SPC26 with updated perspective from his extensive practice in school planning across the Los Angeles metropolitan area — one of the country’s most complex demographic planning environments. His firsthand experience with large urban district pressures adds a dimension to Track B that few practitioners can offer.
Supporting Presenter · Practitioner Perspective
Lance Richards, Ed.D. — Educational Leader and Planner
Dr. Richards brings the superintendent and district leadership viewpoint to SPC26’s long-range planning sessions. Based in New Albany, Indiana, his Ed.D. and practitioner background ground the forecasting methodology in the real decisions that school boards must ultimately make and defend to their communities.
How to Prepare for Track B
No specialized software is required for Track B. Sessions use Microsoft Excel and standard spreadsheet tools. The methodology is the focus, not the platform.
Gather your historical enrollment data
Pull 5 to 10 years of grade-by-grade enrollment counts from your district’s SIS or state reporting system. Any format works — the session covers data cleaning.
Know your residential pipeline
If your district has active residential development, bring what you know — project names, unit counts, housing types. This feeds directly into the yield factor session.
No prior forecasting experience required
Track B starts from fundamentals. Whether you have never built a projection or have been doing it for years, the cohort-survival methodology covered here will sharpen your process.
Your registration covers all three tracks
Track A: GIS Hands-On Training
ArcGIS Pro and SchoolSite Pro for K-12 planners — spatial data, boundary mapping, geocoding, and board-ready map outputs. Led by Georgia Leonard, MBA, GISP.
View Track ATrack C: Safety, Capacity, and Consolidation
Indoor GIS, critical incident mapping, capacity utilization analysis, and boundary adjustment community engagement. Led by Marci Horner.
View Track CReady to Build Your Forecasting Capability?
Register for SPC26 and spend three days mastering the enrollment projection methodology that districts use to make defensible, board-ready forecasting decisions in-house.