MPS committee reviews new cohort-based enrollment tool as district counts more than 10,000 fewer students over 15 years

A Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) committee heard on an enrollment-projection tool developed with consulting firm Formative and was told the district has lost more than 10,000 students over the last 15 years, a decline that administrators and consultants said makes accurate forecasting essential for budgeting and equitable resource allocation.

Superintendent Bridal Caselli introduced Formative representatives Mary Dillman and Jamie Racinelli, saying the district currently lacks a demographer and needs dependable projections "to have really strong budgets and dependable budgets that you can trust." Racinelli said the cohort-based tool was built specifically for MPS and will produce school-level reports and self-service tools for principals and budget staff.

Formative presented recent trends they said drive the forecasts: total enrollment has fallen by more than 10,000 students over 15 years (and by roughly 10,000 students or about 15% over nine years), with a drop of about 1,200 students (roughly 2%) going into the most recent school year. The consultants said the steepest single-year decline occurred during the pandemic—losing "over 3,000 students" in 2021–22—and that fewer resident births are a major long-term factor; they reported resident births in Milwaukee fell by about 1,600 (approximately 16%) between 2010 and 2020.

Racinelli described how cohort dynamics amplify those effects: "once you have multiple years of smaller kindergarten cohorts entering the system and aging up through the system, that has a compounding effect," and he noted one of the largest drops occurs between grades five and six (recently about 7%). The presentation also said English-learner enrollment grew during the pandemic, which temporarily offset declines, but that this year the total number of English learners declined for the first time since the pandemic.

Committee members focused questions on how the tool will be used and what it does not yet model. Budget director Nick Sinneram said enrollment projections drive equalization aid and school needs and that the tool "will give principals earlier, more reliable trend information" to plan staffing and operations. Racinelli said Phase I of the work does not include open-enrollment (choice) data: "Not included in the first round. That's something that could be built on in the future." He added the tool provides "very quick access to school level data for every single school in the district" but still requires local context and judgment when modeling potential changes such as a school opening or a major program move.

Public commenter Clinton Clabaugh (who identified himself as Quintin Clabon during his remarks) asked whether the model could be made to account for school openings, closures or other expected local shifts. Racinelli replied the tool does not automatically incorporate every hypothetical change but gives district staff data and historical choice patterns to make informed adjustments and forecast scenarios; he also said identifying whether birth rates have reached a natural plateau would require a separate, full demographic study.

Directors also raised recruitment and communications as complementary strategies. Director Seemson urged district-led outreach, parent engagement and a coordinated enrollment campaign rather than leaving marketing to individual schools; administration said MPS is rebranding school web pages, adding an enrollment button, planning Kindergarten Roundup and working with partners such as MTEA on outreach. Several members emphasized that the projections should be paired with active recruitment in schools that the data show are most at risk of declining enrollment.

Formative and administrators confirmed the tool’s primary function will be to produce school-level projections to inform FY2027 budgeting and to reduce unexpected staffing or budget changes. No formal action or vote was taken on the item at the meeting.

The committee closed after confirming the projection data would be used in the upcoming budget process and that staff will continue to develop school-level reports and transparency materials for principals.