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, migration patterns, and board-ready demographic studies across four days.
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 Four-Day Schedule
Day One · Tuesday, June 23
Demographics foundations — cohort-survival, housing development, birth rates, and kindergarten capture
B1: Demographics 101 — The Science of Student Data
After this session you will understand the core components of a demographic study, the primary data sources used in K-12 forecasting, and how those inputs feed every projection methodology taught in Track B.
B2: The Cohort-Survival Method Explained
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.
B3: Tracking Housing Development & Student Yields
After this session you will be able to calculate student generation rates (SGR) from new residential developments by housing type and integrate residential pipeline data into growth-area enrollment projections.
B4: Birth Rate Trends & Kindergarten Capture
After this session you will be able to analyze local birth data to predict incoming kindergarten class sizes, identify trend inflection points, and integrate birth cohort analysis into your 10-year enrollment model.
Day 1 Wrap-up & Q&A
Day Two · Wednesday, June 24
Staffing forecasts, migration patterns, charter school impact, and long-range planning
B5: Staffing Allocations & Short-Term Forecasts
After this session you will be able to use next-year enrollment projections to drive immediate teacher hiring and classroom rostering decisions — translating forecast data into actionable staffing recommendations.
B6: Analyzing Migration & Mobility Patterns
After this session you will be able to quantify family migration into and out of your district, identify the neighborhoods and grade bands most affected by mobility, and incorporate migration trends into long-range enrollment numbers.
B7: Private & Charter School Impact Analysis
After this session you will be able to quantify the enrollment “draw” of non-public school options in your market and factor private and charter school growth or contraction into your district’s forecast assumptions.
B8: 10-Year Long-Range Planning
After this session you will be able to extend forecasts beyond the standard 5-year window to support facilities master planning — building the longer-horizon projections that capital improvement cycles require.
Day 2 Wrap-up & Q&A
Day Three · Thursday, June 25
Model accuracy, board communication, and emerging AI trends in enrollment forecasting
B9: Staffing Allocations & Short-Term Forecasts
After this session you will be able to apply short-term forecasting outputs directly to staffing planning — refining the hiring and rostering process using the projection methodology built in earlier sessions.
B10: Accuracy Assessment & Model Tuning
After this session you will be able to compare past projections against actual enrollment outcomes, diagnose where and why your model diverged, and apply those findings to refine your forecasting assumptions going forward.
B11: Presenting Data to the Board
After this session you will be able to translate complex demographic trends and projection methodology into a board-ready presentation — communicating forecast uncertainty, key assumptions, and recommended action to non-technical stakeholders.
B12: Future of Enrollment — AI & Predictive Analytics
After this session you will understand the emerging technologies and AI-driven approaches entering the enrollment forecasting space — and how to evaluate which tools are ready for district use versus still maturing.
Day 3 Wrap-up & Q&A
Day Four · Friday, June 26
Economic impact, GIS integration, and peer review of your forecast methodology
B13: Analyzing the Economic Impact on Enrollment
After this session you will be able to analyze how interest rates, inflation, and local employment shifts change student migration patterns — and incorporate economic scenario assumptions into your district’s enrollment projections.
Morning Break
B14: Integrating GIS with Forecasting Models
After this session you will be able to use spatial analysis to refine the accuracy of cohort-survival projections — linking enrollment forecasts to ArcGIS attendance zones to identify where growth pressure and decline are concentrated geographically.
B15: Forecast Peer Review Workshop
In this collaborative closing session attendees review each other’s projection methodologies — giving and receiving structured feedback on assumptions, data sources, and model design before taking your work back to your district.
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
Lead Presenter · Track B
Lorne Woods
K-12 Demographer, MGT
Lorne Woods is MGT’s K-12 demographer and the forecasting practitioner behind Track B’s hands-on methodology sessions. He specializes in cohort-survival analysis, student yield factors, birth rate trends, and building long-range enrollment projections that hold up under board scrutiny. The methods taught in Track B are the same ones he uses daily in client engagements across the country.
Supporting Presenter · Track B
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.