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Consultants present data-driven SLPS master plan showing enrollment decline and multi-hundred-million-dollar savings scenarios
Summary
Consultants presented a draft master plan with a facility condition assessment, enrollment forecasts and three consolidation models that project five‑ to ten‑year operational savings between roughly $167 million and $312 million; the plan will be refined with staff and community input ahead of a near‑term draft for board review.
Steve Raskin of Clark Edner presented a data‑driven draft of the St. Louis Public Schools master plan, telling the board the district faces sharply declining enrollment and large deferred maintenance needs.
Raskin said the firm’s facility condition assessment covered more than 79 buildings and roughly 6.5 million square feet, producing more than 10,600 observations. The 20‑year deferred maintenance estimate the team presented was about $1.8 billion, with immediate short‑term repair needs “in excess of $160 million,” he said.
The presentation included multiple modeling scenarios to “right‑size” the district’s portfolio. Raskin described three consolidation or alignment models the consultants labeled A, B and C and said preliminary modelling showed roughly $167 million in operational savings over five years for some scenarios and $303 million to $312 million over 10 years depending on assumptions.
“By realigning buildings and students in zones that meet our program and facility metrics, we can meaningfully reduce long‑term operations and maintenance costs,” Raskin said.
Tiffany Dawkins, who walked trustees through interactive dashboards, said the consultants used several capacity metrics — historic MGT baselines, design capacity by DESE/SLPS guidance and program capacity based on current configurations — and ran about 135 scenario models to identify schools that did not meet minimum performance thresholds.
The consultants also showed design priorities they plan to carry forward, including minimum pre‑K classroom counts, age‑appropriate restrooms on lower floors for younger learners, dedicated STEM and special‑education spaces, and separate outdoor play areas for pre‑K/kindergarten students.
Board members raised process questions about how the models handle PK–8 configurations and community impacts. Raskin said the visuals and dashboards are draft tools intended to help the district test scenarios; he said the team expects to have a near‑final draft for staff review by Labor Day and will continue to incorporate community feedback.
The consultants emphasized the presentation was not a set of board decisions but an analytic tool to inform prioritization and budget planning. Next steps include finer‑grained school‑level cost estimates and additional input from district staff and community stakeholders.
