I started blogging because I thought the 'facts' I was reading on Facebook weren't always fact. Once a claim is made, regardless of whether true, it is hard to kill. And too often, after Town Council Meetings, School Board Meetings, rumors would start that 'apartments are being built here', 'schools are overcrowded there', etc.
So I tried posting just the facts that I knew to be true, or those I could verify with hard data. After meetings, I would post only what I heard, generally without analysis. I felt this was a good way to help alleviate the partisanship that at times tears this town apart. I leave it to others to analyze what things mean and whether they are good or bad for our town.
What I didn't expect was that I would have to fight the media as well.
Last week, there was an article was published on NJ.com entitled “This district closed a school, but now they have more students than expected.” The headline is obviously meant to tell a story. But is it true? While I had quite a few issues with the article, I was immediately struck by the statement “But two elementary schools, Helen L. Beeler and Frances S. DeMasi, are already 16 and four students short of capacity.” I knew this not to be true. I had previously received a copy of the latest enrollment figures (from 10/13/2017) and compared them with the latest set of Facility Efficiency Standards (FES) numbers I could find, and the article was using incorrect numbers.
I contacted the author of the article, Ms Amanda Hoover, and relayed the information I found, stating: “Beeler has an FES Capacity of 649 and currently has 571 students. DeMasi Elementary has an FES Capacity of 392 and has a current enrollment of 301!" That puts them 78 and 91 students away from capacity.
So I tried posting just the facts that I knew to be true, or those I could verify with hard data. After meetings, I would post only what I heard, generally without analysis. I felt this was a good way to help alleviate the partisanship that at times tears this town apart. I leave it to others to analyze what things mean and whether they are good or bad for our town.
What I didn't expect was that I would have to fight the media as well.
Last week, there was an article was published on NJ.com entitled “This district closed a school, but now they have more students than expected.” The headline is obviously meant to tell a story. But is it true? While I had quite a few issues with the article, I was immediately struck by the statement “But two elementary schools, Helen L. Beeler and Frances S. DeMasi, are already 16 and four students short of capacity.” I knew this not to be true. I had previously received a copy of the latest enrollment figures (from 10/13/2017) and compared them with the latest set of Facility Efficiency Standards (FES) numbers I could find, and the article was using incorrect numbers.
I contacted the author of the article, Ms Amanda Hoover, and relayed the information I found, stating: “Beeler has an FES Capacity of 649 and currently has 571 students. DeMasi Elementary has an FES Capacity of 392 and has a current enrollment of 301!" That puts them 78 and 91 students away from capacity.
I asked the author where she got her numbers and her response was “These numbers were done using enrollment as of 9/29, and FES Capacity numbers on a public document from the township.” Note she said ‘from the township’, not ‘from the school district’. She did, however, make a correction to her article after her email to me, adding the italicized words below “But two elementary schools, Helen L. Beeler and Frances S. DeMasi, are already 16 and four students short of capacity, according to the township.” (italics added)
I already had the 9/29 enrollment numbers, so I needed to determine where the FES numbers she was using came from. It would appear the Beeler FES number came from a School Board presentation from March 2016, 18 months ago:
But the DeMasi FES number in the above chart is combined for the elementary and middle schools. So where did Ms Hoover get the 305 number from? I was unable to locate that number anywhere online. However, I did find that number in the Sundance Study dated 6/23/2016. Sundance is the demographer hired by the town. While the chart below is almost identical to the previous one from the School District, I have circled the differences between the two documents:
Here is where the DeMasi Elementary FES number comes from. Let me be clear – I am not suggesting that Sundance added the split in. My guess is that there is another version of this document that was put out by the Evesham Township School District at some point. However, as far as I can tell, it is not available online. My conclusion, then, is that the author of this article got this printout directly from the Sundance report, which again, I don’t believe is available online. Based on the ‘according to the township’ in her previous quote, my guess is these numbers did not come from the School District.
I also forwarded to her the most recent (at the time) presentation from the School Board with updated FES Capacity numbers, from last spring’s budget presentation.
I did not hear back from Ms Hoover. I did send her one final email to invite her to the school board meeting that same night, letting her know that the Superintendent would be giving a presentation on updated enrollment and capacity numbers. Sadly she did not attend. My question though, is if Ms Hoover was using publicly available documentation, why didn’t she use the most recent documents, which are published on the School District website? She had updated enrollment numbers, because it wouldn’t be prudent to write an article with outdated enrollment numbers. But why didn’t she obtain updated FES numbers? FES numbers are not static numbers. They fluctuate depending on the distribution of students by grade – classrooms housing lower grades have a lower FES capacity than higher grades, and self-contained Special Education classes have an even lower FES capacity, as detailed at the State of NJ website for FES Standards. The Facilities Efficiency Standards (FES) are mathematical calculations to determine the number of students allowed per classroom per building, and are based on grade of student, square footage of classrooms, presence of bathrooms, etc.
I also reached out to Mr Scavelli, Superintendent of the Evesham School District regarding this article. He forwarded me a copy of his email to Ms. Hoover. In it, he states “The full FES capacity of our 6 elementary schools is 3,520. Our current elementary enrollment is 2,821 (down from 2,831 last year).” If you use the FES Capacity numbers that Ms Hoover cited, for the 6 remaining elementary schools, you get a capacity of 3,244, a difference of 276 from the correct number. That should have raised a red flag that her numbers were outdated. And the statement that there were fewer elementary students than last year should have raised another, as it directly contradicts the meaning of the headline of the article.
Updated enrollment and FES Capacities were indeed presented at the school board meeting and are shown below. No school is near capacity.
Unfortunately, it would appear that Facebook is not the only source of the misleading information that is dividing our town. I would encourage everyone to be vigilant in pursuit of the truth.