UW–Madison projects Sun Prairie Area School District enrollment could fall or rise slightly over five years

David Egan Robertson, a demographer at the UW–Madison Population Laboratory, told a presentation that the Sun Prairie Area School District’s total preK–12 enrollment is projected to range from roughly 8,400 to about 9,100 students in five years — a numeric change of about “minus 2 to plus 6 percent” from current levels, he said.

The projections matter because they give district leaders a range of potential student counts to consider for near-term planning. Robertson said the results come from four models that rely on three primary building blocks: projected births, kindergarten counts and grade-progression ratios (GPRs), which capture year-to-year cohort change.

Robertson summarized the district’s recent history: total enrollment rose about 6 percent over the past decade (about 470 students), with an early three-year gain, a subsequent four-year…