A Deep Dive Into Enrollment Numbers 7/23/2018

Ever since the idea of closing Evans School became a possibility, talk about enrollment numbers never seems to be far from the surface.  Unfortunately, the discussions that ensue are based on conjecture and opinion, rather than actual numbers.  And with the approach of the election in November, I fear this problem is going to get worse before it gets better.  Whether you are a taxpayer and/or a parent, this is definitely an important topic, but its important to be able to separate the fact from the rhetoric.

Here is my attempt to provide actual numbers.  Most of the numbers contained here come either directly from a Evesham Township School District website (which will be shown with a link) or from data I have requested via an OPRA request, which can be accessed here.   There are a few exceptions:  the Sundance Demographic study, which would need to be requested from the Township via an OPRA request and the FES and Birth data, which come from the State of NJ (links provided at the end of the blog).

I will not be reviewing the dueling demographic report in any significant detail.  Unfortunately, both demographic report had significant flaws.  The Whitehall study done in January 2016 did not take into account a few developments that had been/were about to be approved.  Every year, the school district requests development approval information from the town for their yearly demographic report.   I am not certain whether there were communication issues between the town and the district, or whether the report was compiled before the developments were actually approved, or some other possibility, but these developments were indeed absent.  A follow up study was done in April of 2016 which included these additional developments.  

The Sundance Associates study commissioned by the town was flawed in a different manner - it greatly overestimated the speed at which new developments would be built.  It had Barclay Chase, Renaissance Square and Windingbrook sending students to the Evesham Township Schools years before they were actually built.  None currently have residents and are therefore sending zero students to the district.

I will avoid talking about these reports because whichever demographic report you prefer, whether or not the right decision was made in January of 2016 cannot be undone.  The more important question for residents, parents and taxpayers is 'what do the schools looks like now?'  'Are the schools overcrowded?'  'Are the classrooms overcrowded?' 'Have the goals outlined prior to consolidation been achieved?'

Note: For parts of this study, I will be looking at the elementary schools in their entirety.  For other parts, I will be looking at General Education students only - Kindergarten, Pre-K and Special Education classrooms have different requirements and skew the data.   I will indicate if I am looking at only Grades 1-5. 


What is current total enrollment?  Are the schools overcrowded?

Here is what I take away from these charts
  1. Enrollment is down almost 20% from its peak in 2003.
  2. Two elementary schools (Beeler and Rice) have more students than their peak in 2003.  The remaining schools have less than their peak.
  3. Enrollment is down slightly over the past 2 years (since the Evans vote).  
  4. School are not close to 'full'.  The capacity numbers shown on the first chart are determined by the State of New Jersey.   Some (Rice and Beeler) are closer than others, but none is higher than 90.3% of capacity.
  5. The last column in the first chart shows enrollment in the beginning of this past school year.  Enrollment went up slightly during the school year.  The prior school year showed a similar trend.  Enrollment typically drops in September and slowly increases during the school year.  It went from 2,868 at the end of the 2017 school year down to 2,813 for the start of the next school year.

Are classrooms overcrowded?

Here are the average class sizes over the last 3 years by grade and by school.  Included in the second chart is the Projected Class Size for the 2017-2018 school year that was included in the presentations given by Superintendent Scavelli in early 2016.



  1. DeMasi, Jaggard, Marlton and Van Zant are half a student or less from their projections made 2.5 years ago.  Beeler has an average a full student less than projected, while Rice has an average 1.5 students greater than projected.
  2. With the exception of 1st grade, all classrooms are near their pre-consolidation average.  Consolidation did not cause these classes to increase dramatically in size. 1st grade has an average increase of 2.1 students per class. 
But there are classes with 23, 24 or 25 children!

This was recently brought up at a Town Council meeting, as well as on some Facebook sites.  It is true there are classrooms with more than 23 children, but that has always been the case and is not related to consolidation.  In the 2015-2016 school year (prior to consolidation), there were 5 classrooms with 23 or more students.  In the 2017-2018 year that just ended, that number increased to 9.

However 23 seems an arbitrarily chosen number.  If you look at classrooms with 22 or more students, that number has decreased from 15 in the 2015-2016 school year to 13 in the 2017-2018 school year.


Births in Evesham



  1. When the Sundance Projection was done in 2016, it used a 6 year average to determine expected birth rates of 2015 and 2016, using an average of 467.  Actual live births in Evesham were well below this at 391 and 419.
  2. Despite having a steady population over the last 13 years, births have declined dramatically, more than 20%.  
Wasn't staffing supposed to drop with consolidation?

It actually has.  Not a lot, but is has
Full time employees of ETSD have been dropping since 2014


Conclusion
These are just numbers.  Your personal experience may be different and I in no means intend to negate how it feels.  If you are a Beeler parent and your school has gone from 406 students in 2016 to 470 students in 2017 to 568 students in 2018, your school will definitely feel more crowded.

But the fact remains that the Evesham Township School District has a maximum capacity of 3,530 students and we are currently at 2,852.  No demographic report comes any where close to predicting the kind of increase that would cause us to be at capacity.  The most recent Whitehall Study from January 2018 predicts enrollment to drop in the future.  (There has been no updated Sundance study, so it is really not worth looking at that one any longer).



Links