Superintendent presents 10-year enrollment forecast using PowerSchool predictive analytics
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Summary
Superintendent Dr. Clark presented a 10-year enrollment forecast produced with PowerSchool predictive analytics, reporting current enrollment as 4,221 and noting conservative and moderate scenarios that hinge on local residential development and sewer infrastructure under I-40.
Superintendent Dr. Clark told the Arlington School Board that the district is adopting PowerSchool's predictive-analytics tool to produce 10-year enrollment projections that combine current PowerSchool records, three years of historical enrollment and town residential-permit research.
"What I felt that was good about this is we know our landscape's changing," Dr. Clark said, outlining conservative and moderate projection models. The district's reported current enrollment is 4,221. Clark said PowerSchool's conservative projection for the 2025 school year estimated a drop of 69 students (to 4,152), while a moderate model showed a shortfall of seven students; for the following year the conservative model projected a 32-student decrease and the moderate model a 30-student increase.
Clark said the analytics can be run annually and can be granular to the study-block or street level by incorporating the town's residential-development timelines. He named several developments the model treats as primary contributors to future enrollment growth, including Hawthorne (largest projected contributor), Villages at White Oak and Providence Place. Clark said the models project peak growth in 2028'030.
Board members pressed on how sewer infrastructure under Interstate 40 could change the district's development and enrollment timeline; a town representative said a sewer study is underway and that funding and negotiation could push substantial development timelines into a multi-year window. Clark told the board staff intends to use the tool's conservative model for budgeting and the moderate model for facilities planning.
Transcript phrasing of one development figure was unclear: Clark said the projection was "about 15 50 new residential units are projected to be occupied by 2034." That phrasing was recorded verbatim in the transcript and has been flagged for numeric verification.
Clark also noted nonresident-enrollment rules and their impact: without nonresident students, the district's 2026 enrollment projection would drop dramatically (the transcript reports a modeled loss to 3,024), which Clark said would translate to an estimated $8.7 million in lost state funding. He concluded that, based on current conservative assumptions, the district is not projected to need a new school within the next decade but will continue annual monitoring.
The board did not take formal action on the analytics presentation but expressed general support for continuing annual updates and using conservative projections for budgeting.