Why Are We Fixated on School Building Utilization?
School districts are increasingly using capacity, enrollment projections, and utilization as a reason to close schools. So, what are they and how are they being used?
A school’s capacity is the maximum number of students that COULD be served.
This number should be static and not include temporary buildings, like portables. The number of classrooms and how many students those classrooms can legally hold, based on an average student:teacher ratio (established by law and union contracts) for the grade levels in the building accounts for the capacity. 15 classrooms that can hold an average of 20 students = 300 student capacity. Using this calculation a school with a 300 student capacity and enrollment at 240 would be 80% capacity which is healthy.
Utilization is a different number.
While a classroom could hold more students, DLC classrooms may be capped at 10 students, and a preschool classroom may be capped at 15. This is going to impact a schools capacity percentage, but school utilization should remain the same if each classroom has the maximum number of students allowed by grade or program level. So taking this into consideration if the same school had 15 classrooms with 1 DLC and 1 Preschool class their maximum utilization number they could serve would be 285. Using utilization, a school with 285 maximum utilization and enrollment of 225 is still at 80%, healthy.
Enrollment projections are just that.
The number of students the school, demographers, or district project will be at a particular school the following year(s). By changing class sizes, and where special programs are placed, the district is manipulating the “capacity percentages” and the number of students a school can hold to suit their desires.
The story of the obsession of school building utilization in OSD begins in 2022 when the district hired FLO Analytics to produce enrollment projections. FLO projected a decline in enrollment, which became the prime justification for closing Madison and McKenny Elementary Schools because it showed our buildings were underutilized and this underutilization would only grow for the foreseeable future.
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We decided to see how FLO’s projections sized up three years later. Normally, enrollment projections fair better (<5% error rate), but FLO failed to accurately predict enrollment for four elementary schools (Centennial, Hansen, LP Brown and Pioneer) just three years into the projection model (Figure 1). Hansen is particularly notable because they were unable to predict accurately just one year into the model. We were unable to ascertain why Hansen was so unpredictable but would like to highlight it because it shows that enrollment is not always so predictable.
We were surprised to see McLane projections match well with actual enrollments because McLane’s catchment has been actually losing an average of 17 OSD students a year for the last 5 years, but made up for the loss with out-of-district transfers. In fact, they almost tripled the number of out-of-district students from 11 to 32 in the last 5 years, keeping total enrollment steady.
We analyzed data comparing the catchment a student lives in to where they actually attend school. Across the board, we found an increase in students attending schools not in their catchment (Figure 2). In other words, our schools are more and more being made of students who do not live in the neighborhoods surrounding their school. Some of these can be explained by an increase in out of district students, but many of these are caused by in-district transfers.
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In 2016, Olympia passed a bond for 5 “mini buildings” with 10 classrooms each at McLane, Hansen, Pioneer, Centennial, and Roosevelt Elementary schools. Capacity in 2016 was calculated using an average of 21 students per classroom in K-5. Over the last decade, we’ve seen capacity grow in our permanent buildings.
The district has added 1,758 seats to elementary capacity, with over 300 seats being allocated to schools without mini buildings. But how?
According to the Capital Facilities Plan, “Some programs, such as special education serve fewer students but require regular-sized classrooms. An increased need for these programs at a given school can reduce that school’s total capacity.”
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While this district increased the average capacity to 25 students per K-5 general education classroom, lifeskills, developmental learning classrooms, and preschool classrooms do not serve as many children in a space, due to equipment and need, the maximum K-5 DLC classroom has approximately 10 students. The district has favored westside schools for the placement of these programs.
This year, nearly all schools, including those with mini buildings, will begin in overload. Meanwhile, we are using the very same metrics that justified the bond for 5 mini buildings to close neighborhood schools. These numbers have nothing to do with a student’s experience in a classroom, and it’s more expensive and less sustainable for parents to send their children out of their neighborhood.
And while ALE programs (Avanti, ORLA Online, hConnect, Middle School Academy, and the Freedom Farm) rely on less classroom time and smaller class sizes, their services also continue to be cut based in favor of larger classes using enrollment projections and utilization numbers that are out of step with how the buildings are used.
Sources: Olympia School District Capital Facilities Plan: 2017-2022 | 2022-27 | 2024-2029 | 2025-2027 | 2026-2031 | Long Range Facility Committee Master Plan | Capital Facilities Plan Comparison