Here are the current enrollment numbers for the Evesham Township School District. I have been providing these numbers along with some analysis since 2017. While the reasons behind providing this information may have changed, it is still very important information for everyone to understand, in light of continuing declining financial support from the State government.
While total enrollment is up slightly from last year (a less than 1% increase), special education enrollment is up more than 10%.
Kindergarten enrollment is up slightly from last year, with 27 more full day students. Tuition based full day Kindergarten is a significant source of revenue for the district, though this may change in the next couple of years. The district will be adding a ballot question to the November 2023 ballot, asking taxpayers to support a raise in taxes to cover costs to provide Kindergarten for all students without tuition. If the measure passes, tax paid Kindergarten will presumably begin in September 2024.
Average class size has increased in all grades except 2nd.
With continuing cuts in State Aid, it looks like classroom size has increased as a result. Since I know some will look at the class sizes and wish for a lower number of students, I did a few calculations. In order to get the averages for all grades to 20 or fewer, Evesham would need to hire 13 more teachers. If I recall correctly, Superintendent Smith used the figure $80,000 per teacher in calculations to determine how much taxpayer paid full day Kindergarten would cost. Using that same figure, 13 additional teachers would cost $1,040,000. So a little over one million dollars to reduce classroom size to 20.
(The actual figure would actually be quite a bit higher than that. 13 would be the minimum number of teachers required if students were split exactly in increments of 20 in every school in the district. For example, there were 400 second graders, if things were split perfectly, you would need 20 teachers. If instead the split was 88 at Beeler, 42 at DES, 60 at Jaggard, 91 at MES, 33 at Rice and 86 at Van Zant, you would need 5 teachers at Beeler, 3 at DES, 3 at Jaggard, 5 at MES, 2 at Rice and 5 at Van Zant, or 23 teacher total! The student numbers used above are the actual numbers this year.)
Enrollment Update - Sept 2018
Enrollment Update - June 2019
Enrollment Update - June 2020
Enrollment Update - Sept 2020
Enrollment Update - Sept 2021