JC Schools ponder population future

Demographics play key role in school decisions

Jefferson City's public high school population should start growing "about 2016-17," consultant Preston Smith told Jefferson City School Board members Friday.

Smith and his Kansas City-based firm, Business Information Services, gave school leaders a 300-page book they can use to start planning for the future - a major demographic study that the schools commissioned, with financial help from the Jefferson City and Cole County governments and the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce.

"There are five major demographic trends today that we're starting to see - things that we have not seen since the 1930s," Smith said.