Business Information Services, LLC Broken Arrow Public Schools August 2005 DEMOGRAPHICS

205 Pages·2014·44.27 MB·English

by  Preston Smith

Broken Arrow
Public
Schools
D E M O G R A P H I C S
S T U D Y
AND
E N R O L L M E N T
P R O J E C T I O N S

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August 2005F ebruary 2014
Broken Arrow Public Schools
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary 4
Reasons for the Study 7
Long-Range Projections 8
Capacity Analysis 24
District Demographics 28
Building Profiles 76
Residential Construction 122
Map Appendix 146
Third-Party Demographic 176
Data
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Broken Arrow Public Schools
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
T
he Broken Arrow School District, after 25 years of
generally steady enrollment growth, is poised to grow
to at least 18,575 students by 2023, and as high as
20,263. We believe there are many demographic fac-
tors that point to stronger enrollment growth than we had seen in
our 2011 study.
Projections from our demographic data vendors point to
double-digit percentage increases in the number of childbearing-
age women, children under 5 years old and school-age children
throughout most of the district. As the economy recovers, most
of the factors that we analyzed point to stronger enrollment
growth in Broken Arrow School District than we have seen dur-
ing the last five years.
One of our overriding concerns in this study is district’s
capacity to house students in the years to come, especially at the
high school, which we estimate could need as much as 240,000
additional sq. ft. of classroom space to hold its enrollment within
the next 10 years.
Business Information Services, LLC has no financial in-
terest in the Broken Arrow Public Schools. Special thanks go to
Administrative Assistant Karen Steitz and Chief Financial Of-
ficer Dwayne Thompson who provided data upon request. Nei-
ther the school administration nor school board has attempted to
influence the findings of this study in any way.
A draft was delivered to the district via email on Jan. 16,
2014. A final report was mailed
XXXX, 2014.

Preston Smith
Principal Owner
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KEY FINDINGS
Three projection models show the district’s total enrollment

reaching between 18,575 and 20,263 students by the 2023-24
school year. (See p. 20-22.)
Using a national standard for school building capacity levels,

there are signs of overcrowding in 5 of 23 buildings. We are
especially concerned about the overcrowding that could occur
at the Broken Arrow High School and Freshman Center by
2023-24. We estimate that 240,000 sq. ft. of additional class-
room space would be necessary by then to meet minimum na-
tional standards. We recommend that overcrowding at the ele-
mentary schools can be alleviated before the next school year
by readjusting the attendance boundary lines. Within the next
five years, the middle school attendance lines will need to be
adjusted. (See p. 24-27.)
There are percentage ranges at the elementary schools in both

minority enrollment (see p. 46) and free-and-reduced lunch
enrollment (see p. 44). If boundary lines are adjusted to bal-
ance better the building utilizations, then it would be our rec-
ommendation that the district take steps to balance more
closely the percentages across the schools.

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Broken Arrow Public Schools
Figure 1. Aerial view of the Broken Arrow School District.
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2014-2024 Demographics Study
Reasons for the Study
T
he Broken Arrow School District, a growing
area in the southeastern Tulsa, Oklahoma
metro area, has a diverse and highly changea-
ble population. In December 2013, district ad-
ministrators provided one main objective for our firm:
perform an analysis of the district’s enrollment, includ-
ing a 10-year enrollment projection.
The district intends to use the data collected and
presented in this study to plan for future growth and de-
cide district needs in future bond issues.
In this study, a wide range of sources were used, in-
cluding data from the Oklahoma Department of Educa-
tion, the Oklahoma Health Department, the National
Center for Educational Statistics, and the Tulsa and Wag-
oner County Assessor’s Offices. The Broken Arrow
School District provided student rosters, summary data
and enrollment data by schools and additional demo-
graphic details about students.
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Broken Arrow Public Schools
LONG RANGE
PROJECTIONS
Introduction
T
he Broken Arrow School District has seen relatively steady en-
rollment growth over the past decade, so standard statistical
techniques prove very good at modeling past enrollment in the
district. Assuming steady-state trends these models can then be
extrapolated into the near future to develop enrollment projections. Further-
more, population data from the 2010 Census and third-party population pro-
jections all point toward continued population growth over the next decade
and as a result we project continued strong enrollment growth in tandem,
barring unforeseen circumstances. In a report by the analysts to the district
in 2011, we also projected fairly healthy growth, but the past three years’
enrollments have exceeded even our high projections from 2011. Therefore,
in this report, we continue to project strong growth and raise the growth per-
centages of all three models (high, medium, and low) to account for the en-
rollment, demographic, and economic trends evident in the area.
We also believe that in addition to growth through simple demo-
graphic and in-migration processes, the district has additional growth poten-
tial from (re)-capturing students who have been attending private schools in
the area. With the lingering effects of the national economic downturn that
started in 2008 still affecting much of the country, some families are proba-
bly reverting to public schools as a cost-cutting measure, and there is a fair-
ly large pool of students currently attending private schools around the dis-
trict who might transfer to Broken Arrow.
These projections
were done by FinCo The demographic analysis reported here combines several approach-
GeoDemographics, es to better understand the likely future enrollments of the district. These
LLC, a firm headed by approaches include:
two accomplished pro-
fessors of Geography (a) Examination of population patterns in the 2010 Census and changes
at Oklahoma State Uni- since 2000;
versity. The principal, (b) Exploration of birth data and Kindergarten enrollment trends;
Dr. Jon Comer, has au- (c) Evaluation of third-party population estimates (for 2013) and projections
thored 24 peer-
(to 2023); and
reviewed research arti-
(d) Extrapolation of statistical trends in historic K-12 enrollments into the
cles, received $300,000
next decade.
in research grants and
has served as a board Pre-K enrollments are entirely omitted in all analyses in this report
of directors of the Spa-
as Pre-K is non-compulsory, enrollment totals reported are very uneven, and
tial Analysis and Mod-
the huge increase in enrollment in 2013-14 due to the opening of three new
eling Specialty Group
Early Childhood Centers would skew growth projections. Attempting to in-
of the Association of
corporate Pre-K information would severely degrade the overall district pro-
American Geogra-
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jections because of the use of cohort progression techniques, as would the few students in the Pre-K 3-
year-old program and students otherwise tallied as “ungraded” by the district.
Our projections thus include only students who would be classified in grades K-12 in the district,
including Broken Arrow Academy (the alternative high school), high school students enrolled in virtual
school programs, and some ninth and tenth graders who are attending at the high school building, proba-
bly due to their advanced abilities.
District Overview
District enrollment has grown rapidly over the past ten years, following the previous decade in
which district K-12 enrollment held very steadily around 14,500 students. Overall, though, there have
been some wide swings in K-12 enrollment from year to year. In 2001-02 the district lost 255 students
compared to the year before, but in contrast some huge single-year gains have also occurred, such as 326
(2005-06), 422 (2007-08), and 430 (2010-11), as well as five other years since 2003 with gains of at least
200 students. These swings result in an average annual increase of 137 K-12 students since 1989, though
with a very high standard deviation of 188 students per year, and represent an annual average growth rate
of about 1.0%. However, focusing on just the last decade or so, the trend has been clearer. The district has
added an average of 265 students per year since 2004, an annual average growth rate of 1.8%, and while
the standard deviation is still high at 142, it is smaller in absolute terms and in relation to the average. De-
Figure 2. District total and K-12 enrollment, 1989-2013.
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Broken Arrow Public Schools
District-Specific Issues and Traits
Some assumptions and decisions involved in this project, as well as unique traits of the district,
are reviewed before more detailed information is presented and discussed regarding the population mod-
eling techniques, trend analyses, and district and individual school projections. These points are notable
because they represent decisions or considerations that factored into the creation of a consistent and
workable projection methodology, as well as providing additional information to the district that strikes
the analyst as unique to the district.
Broken Arrow Academy, virtual school students, and freshmen and sophomores attending Broken
Arrow High School (BAHS) create difficulties since the analysts do not know the placement procedures.
The Academy has fairly consistently enrolled between 100 and 115 students in grades 10-12 since 2008.
Between 8 and 12 ninth and tenth grade students attend BAHS each year, while virtual student enroll-
ments have been increasing since 2011. An average of recent enrollments for each grade in each program
is therefore used to estimate future enrollments, the exception being that we project zero virtual middle-
school students and zero freshmen at the alternative high school based on 2013-14 enrollments. As a re-
sult, going forward the alternative high school is projected to have roughly 114 total students in grades 10
-12 per year and virtual students in grades 10-12 are projected up to 104 by 2023-24, but the virtual en-
rollments are largely hypothetical.
More importantly, four elementary schools have been closed and three new schools have opened
since 2011, the elementary and middle school attendance boundaries have shifted (significantly in some
cases), the grade split at Country Lane has changed, and a reconfiguration of the secondary schools is im-
minent in fall 2014. Part of the projection methodology involves computing three-year cohort progression
averages at each site, and since every school except Arrowhead Elementary and Lynn Wood Elementary
has undergone some type of boundary change, this is problematic. Thus, even though Aspen Creek has
replaced Indian Springs and Creekwood has replaced Westwood, these are not simple school replace-
ments since the old attendance boundaries shifted as well. Furthermore, Arrow Springs and Park Lane
closed, while Highland Park opened. Likewise, while Oneta Ridge Middle School nominally replaced
Haskell Middle School, the middle school attendance boundaries were all heavily rearranged to account
for the new school locations and (presumably) to balance middle enrollment capacities.
Thus, the individual school projections presented here could be less accurate until these schools’
attendance figures settle into the new patterns. However, compared to the situation that existed in 2011,
the current arrangement is much more conducive to progression analysis since elementary school students
no longer bifurcate to different middle or high schools, and all freshman starting in 2014 will come to-
gether at the Ninth Grade Academy (old South Intermediate) and remain together throughout the rest of
their high school careers.
Thus, while individual schools may fluctuate more than normal for a few years due to these
changes, overall grade-level estimates should more accurately reflect future enrollments. However, even
simple cohort progression for the entire district is not as straightforward as one might expect. The table
below shows the average change a cohort (first grade one year into second grade the next year, etc.) has
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Figure 108. Broken Arrow School District K-12 enrollment, 1986-2010.