Chase Rogers is an anomaly.
The former military man and current planning director for the Davis County School District is the only full-time operations planner for a Utah school district. Other districts spread out planning responsibilities among different positions.Rogers has been on the job two years, the third planner in the Davis district. The position has existed about 10 years.
Talk to the man and you will get a wealth of statistics leavened by a wry sense of humor, but he's very serious about his job. Planning is a crucial component of Utah school districts, which have been experiencing booming growth. Student population in Davis, for example, increased about 55 percent, from 38,000 to nearly 60,000, in the last wave starting around 1979.
Those were baby boomers' children - the baby boomlet, if you will - combined with Utah in-migration. Districts now will have a few years of relative calm, giving them time to deal with the baby boomlet echo - the boomers' grandchildren - as well as continuing numbers of out-of-staters moving in.
Jordan district has also experienced rapid growth, but Granite - the largest school district in the state - has been declining the past few years. That may be starting to turn around, said district spokesman Kent Gardner, since kindergarten enrollment is up 140 students this year. But district administrators are unsure whether that is a momentary bulge or the beginning of a long-term trend.
New Granite Superintendent Stephen Ronnenkamp has ordered the formation of a long-range planning committee to figure out how many students are coming down the pike.
Ronnenkamp was formerly assistant superintendent in the Davis district and worked closely with Rogers. Earlier this year, before Ronnenkamp made the switch, Rogers prepared a long-range planning document that forecasts student enrollments and new school buildings needed up to the year 2020.
If current infrastructure is any indication, districts had better start preparing now for the next wave. Rogers said the magnitude of the last boom took people by surprise, making them scramble to keep up. Numerous new schools sprang up, putting districts heavily in debt, but they weren't enough.
Portable classrooms, building expansion, year-round schedules and boundary changes were all used - and continue to be used - to give Johnny a place to sit and work. While effective in solving the problem, such measures are often unpopular, sparking parent protests and contentious school board meetings.
One of the keys to avoiding that problem in the future, Rogers said, is to buy up land needed for new schools right now while it's relatively cheap and before it's snapped up by developers. That requires districts to figure out how many students are likely to come in, how many schools will be needed, and where.
In short, Rogers said, a long-range vision is what's needed instead of putting out fires as they ignite.
In Davis, Rogers anticipates the student population peaking at 80,000 about the year 2020.
Planners can benefit students and parents in small but satisfying ways. Rogers' department, for example, recently did some computer trickery and reduced the unwieldy school boundary maps to handy 11-by-14-inch sheets showing boundaries throughout the district. Before, when people moved in and asked the district for school boundaries around their home, they received a list of streets delineating the perimeter. Now they're handed a boundary sheet that has it all laid out visually.
"It's great, and people love it," a district secretary said.