BENTONVILLE -- The School Board on Tuesday approved hiring a demographer to help with enrollment projections.
RSP and Associates, a firm based in Overland Park, Kan., will perform both an enrollment analysis and an attendance boundary analysis at a total cost of $60,000. The School District will pay that from its operating fund, according to Don Hoover, executive director of student services.
The district solicited requests for demography service proposals in the fall. Five firms applied, and a district committee -- including Kelly Carlson, the board's vice president -- interviewed three of them last month, Hoover said.
RSP "stood a head above everybody else" in the process, Carlson said.
"I think there will be a lot of benefit as we plan our growth and try to understand where our district is going to grow," he said.
Bentonville is a rapidly growing school district. District enrollment as of Oct. 1 was 18,536, which is up more than 30% from 10 years ago. The district has built and opened several new schools during that time. The next new building, Vaughn Elementary School, is scheduled to open this fall at Southwest Barron and Opal roads, near the Benton County Fairgrounds.
This is not the first time the district has sought help for a demographics study. Bentonville hired Jack Schreder and Associates of Sacramento, Calif., to do such a study in 2013.
Data collection will begin immediately and RSP will provide some kind of presentation to the board in May, Hoover said.
The enrollment analysis -- using five-year and 10-year enrollment projections -- will answer questions related to school building use and enrollment, population shifts and demographic trends, and how that information affects students throughout the district, according to RSP's written proposal. The analysis will identify trends and areas where challenges may occur or growth can be anticipated.
In the boundary analysis, RSP will develop and examine future zoning options that would meet the district's objectives, according to the firm's proposal.
Matt Burgess, a board member, asked what it would cost for updates to the initial reports RSP provides. Superintendent Debbie Jones said administrators weren't certain, but they would find out.
RSP also has worked recently with the Bryant School District in central Arkansas, providing an enrollment analysis at a time when Bryant was opening two new schools, according to the firm's proposal.
RSP and Associates was founded in 2003 and has helped more than 130 clients in 11 states throughout the Midwest, the proposal states.
In other business Tuesday, the School Board agreed to name Chad Mims as Vaughn Elementary School's first principal.
Mims has been the principal at Cooper Elementary School since 2015. He'll begin his new assignment at Vaughn on July 1.
There's no word yet as to who will replace Mims as Cooper Elementary's next principal, said Leslee Wright, district director of communications.