Caldwell-West Caldwell Student Enrollment May See Slight Bump

CALDWELLS, NJ — Enrollment in the Caldwell-West Caldwell Public School District is expected to grow by about three percent – or about 85 students – over the next five years, a recent study says.

Last week, school administrators released the results of a demographic and enrollment study done for the district by Ross Haber and Associates in December. (See the full report)

Speaking about the projected enrollment increase, the study’s authors wrote that wouldn’t be a “radical change” from what the district has seen in the recent past.

“The Caldwell-West Caldwell School District had a relatively stable enrollment between 2014-15 and 2019-20,” the report stated. “The overall enrollment increased by just over 1 percent in that five-year period. Housing sales have been moderate over the past five years and, in large measure, are why the enrollment has been stable.”

“As of this report, there is no indication of any large residential housing developments at either Planning Board,” researchers said. “The demographics of the community and the schools do not appear to have changed in any significant way during the past five years.”

A plan to create a new ABA section at Harrison Elementary School wasn’t addressed in the report. The school currently houses an integrated prekindergarten program, a half-day prekindergarten disabled program, a full-day kindergarten disabled program and an ABA class.

However, researchers offered the following statement about projected enrollment at Harrison School:

“The preschool and preschool disabled enrollment appears to be stable and, it is difficult to project with any level of reliability, special needs children because of the time issue involved in classification (i.e.-development of IEP’s; diagnosis, entry into a program, etc.). However, as with the rest of the district, these students appear to have been relatively stable in numbers over the past five years.”

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