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Two firms pitch 10-year enrollment projection services to Boyertown Area SD
Summary
At the May board meeting, two vendors — the Pennsylvania Economy League and Steps to Achieve — presented methods, timelines and pricing for a district-wide 10-year enrollment projection study in response to the district RFP.
Patricia “Patty” Moorhead of the Pennsylvania Economy League and Jim Cochenauer of Steps to Achieve presented competing proposals to provide districtwide K-12 enrollment projections.
Moorhead said the Economy League has produced school district enrollment studies since the 1980s and noted a track record with Boyertown: “we have done 3 school district enrollments for Boyertown.” She described a methodology that combines population, housing, birth and migration trends with school-level projections and municipal planning input and estimated a 3–6 month timeline. Moorhead confirmed a $40,000 fee listed in her submitted materials but deferred negotiation to her executive director, noting the final pricing decision would be made by Vinnie Cannizzario.
Steps to Achieve founder Jim Cochenauer proposed cohort-survival projections enhanced with Monte Carlo simulation to produce point estimates and confidence intervals. He said his team would incorporate PIMS data, birth-to-kindergarten correlations from the Department of Health, realtor market data, and outreach to municipal planning agencies. Cochenauer estimated a four-month timeline and cited a proposal price of about $25,000, which he said is negotiable.
Board members asked about scope: whether vendors would contact county planning agencies and municipalities (both confirmed they would), what level of school-level breakout would be provided (both said projections could be broken out by school or grade span), and how neighborhood turnover and rental/vacancy data would be incorporated. Moorhead said the League can provide projections by school and municipality and “we also look at your grade-to-grade progression.” Cochenauer emphasized that his Monte Carlo approach would produce confidence intervals in addition to point estimates.
Neither vendor received an immediate contract award; board members asked follow-up questions about cost, timeline, and the vendors’ local client experience. Moorhead referenced prior Boyertown projects (1986, 2011–12, and 2015–16 updates) and an estimated historical error rate; Cochenauer said Steps to Achieve works with about 70 school systems but noted they have not previously produced full enrollment projections for some of their partners. Both vendors said they would provide detailed deliverables, raw data files and a public presentation to the board as part of the work.
The board did not take contract action during the meeting; both proposals will be considered as procurement work continues and district staff follow up on price, scope and references.
