A consultant told the Bossier Parish School Board on June 3 that the district could see roughly 1,200 to 1,300 additional students over the next seven years and that Benton High School is already above its design capacity.

Mike Hefner, chief demographer for Geographic Planning and Demographic Services LLC, presented a seven-year enrollment projection and repeatedly stressed that the figures are a planning guide rather than exact counts: "The main thing is that these projections are a guide. They're not ... meant to be precise," Hefner said. He described his approach as conservative, noting he avoids overly optimistic housing-absorption assumptions.

Hefner said the projections assume current attendance zones remain in place, no major disasters or policy changes, and no large, immediate statewide shift out of public schools. He told the board he factored in Census Bureau population estimates, recent housing permitting and developer-reported first-occupancy dates, and four years of historical enrollment patterns to model grade-to-grade cohort movement. The consultant said he geocoded current student addresses to identify where new development is already contributing students to schools.

Key findings and numbers cited in the presentation included: Legacy showed an 86% population increase and Kingston 48% between the 2010 and 2020 censuses; parish population rose from about 117,000 in 2010 to roughly 131,000 (Census estimate) as of January; housing units increased from about 47,889 in 2010 to roughly 56,000 in 2023; median household income rose from about $56,000 in 2018 to about $71,000 in 2023; employed residents rose from about 52,000 (March 2020) to about 55,000; and the unemployment rate declined from roughly 6.1% to 3.8%. Hefner said IRS migration data show more higher–adjusted gross income households left the parish than moved in during the most recent available year.

Hefner identified several geographic concentrations of future development that are likely to affect school enrollments, particularly the Legacy/Kingston area and parts of Benton and Haughton. He said development timing is a major uncertain factor: some developers project five-year buildouts that may take six, seven or more years to reach full occupancy because of financing, labor and interest-rate conditions. He singled out expansions of municipal sewer service (Sewage District Number 1) as a critical infrastructure driver for where development will actually occur.

On school capacity, Hefner said he used the district's design-capacity figures and the district's functional-capacity assumptions (the consultant used the district-provided approach of roughly 80% for elementary and 70% for high school to estimate practical capacity). He confirmed temporary classrooms were not included in the design-capacity totals. Board members told Hefner the district is in the process of removing 18 temporary classrooms; Hefner responded that those temporary units were not included in his capacity calculations and that the report compares projected enrollments to the district's design capacity.

Hefner said Benton High School is already exceeding its design capacity and that, according to the projection model, no other schools rise above functional capacity until about 2029 under his baseline assumptions. He named Legacy/Kingston and Benton as sites the district should monitor closely for near-term planning and cited Meadowview and Kerr as schools whose cohort calculations may need further tuning because a recent unusual cohort pattern appeared to skew the model.

Board members and staff questioned several details during the presentation. They asked Hefner to supply a military-employment breakdown (military personnel were not included in the civilian labor counts he presented) and to recheck specific school-grade cohort calculations he flagged as possible outliers. Hefner said he will issue an addendum with tuned formulas and the requested military breakdown after staff review.

The board took no binding policy action at the meeting; the only formal motion recorded in the transcript was to adjourn, moved by Mr. McConathy and seconded by Mr. Bauchhaus.

Hefner told the board the projections are intended "for planning purposes"—to inform staffing, facility and budget planning—and recommended using the report as a baseline that the district should continue to refine with staff and additional local data.

Planning next steps discussed included staff vetting and confirming projections for schools flagged as outliers, using the report to prioritize short-term facility work (consultant and several board members highlighted Benton High as a near-term focus), and awaiting Hefner's addendum with the military breakdown and tuned school-level cohort assumptions.