How Will New Housing Affect Enrollment At East Brunswick Schools?

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ - Several housing projects are being planned in East Brunswick, which gives rise to the question – how will the school district handle new students?

Last Thursday, the Board of Education received a demographic update presentation that included enrollment trends and anticipated impacts from new housing projects. The study projected the number of students that will attend the East Brunswick School District by 2027.

Richard S. Grip, Executive Director of Statistical Forecasting LLC, made his presentation to the BOE and the community. Here are some highlights from the report.

In October last year, Grip presented his report to the BOE. During that time, he did not have the exact number of bedroom distribution in the housing projects.

His current report includes these figures, along with an updated enrollment projection based on this data.

The previous report was also done based on the old grade configuration.

The updated report projects enrollment of 478 children to the school district (K-12). The previous report projected new enrollment of 284 new students.

So how did they calculate the number of projected students?

In the prior analysis, Grip computed student yields by housing type. Since East Brunswick does not have enough affordable housing units to use as a sample size, Grip used the Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research Multipliers.

The study calculates .088 children for a one-bedroom unit, for a two-bedroom unit it was .408 children and for a three-bedroom unit it’s 1.087 children.

“Once we compute those 478 children the idea is we have to join them into the baseline projections in the attendance areas that those developments are going to be, the elementary attendance areas and modify them to account for those additional children,” Grip said.

The largest percentage of student growth will take place in elementary and high school. The 5 to 6th grade configuration will be “fairly stable.” The 7th to 9th grade will see some gain in enrollment.

“The enrollments will likely be fairly stable if not for these impending developments,” Grip said.

East Brunswick School District has seen a historic decline in enrollment but based on the increasing birth rate, there will be a spike in the kindergarten population five years later, Grip explained.

The second reason for growth in enrollment is “inward migration,” where families move into a township for their schools. “Excellent districts attract people and it’s always that way,” Grip said.

Grip suggested that the number of affordable housing units has an impact on the number of students coming into the district.

During his State of the Township address, Cohen said the BOE was not being forthcoming with the high school project and questioned the need for a new building. Cohen said that the school district has a capacity to accommodate over 9500 students and with the school district’s current capacity, more students could enter the district. More: BOE Must Show Why New High School Is Needed: East Brunswick Mayor

BOE member Mark Csizmar however disagreed with this assessment after Grip presented the report. “The quality of education goes up with the less amount of children in the classroom – more attention per child,” Csizmar said. More: BOE Responds To East Brunswick Mayor's Criticism On New School Project

He noted that most children will be going into Lawrence Brook Elementary School based on the number of apartments being constructed in that area of town.

Board member Jeffrey Winston said the BOE cannot be “blindsided” by the number of upcoming apartment units and “need to respond by making sure that we too have the capacity on the lower school levels to house these students.”

You can watch the meeting here:

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