Marlboro will hold off on new school
Administrators are carefully evaluating demographer's numbers
BY TALI ISRAELI
Staff Writer

The Marlboro Board of Education has decided not to go ahead with plans to build a new school after the latest set of projections shows a possible dip in future enrollment.

The Marlboro K-8 School District is projecting an increase of about 260 students over the next five years, according to the demographer's report. That number is significantly lower than the 400 students officials had anticipated coming into the district over the next five years.

In February, the board created a citizens advisory committee (CAC) to research and analyze how administrators could best address enrollment and space issues facing Marlboro's K-8 public schools.

In June the CAC made its recommendations to the board, which included a proposal to build a new elementary school that would house about 750 students and a proposal to build an eight-classroom addition to the Marlboro Early Learning Center (MELC).

MELC houses all of the district's kindergarten pupils.

The CAC's recommendations were based on old projections that showed an increase of about 400 students over the next five years. In the 2005-06 school year the district had 6,143 students attending school in Marlboro. The projections the CAC used showed that in the 2009-10 school year that number was expected to rise to 6,544 students, before declining to 6,512 pupils in 2010-11.

However, when the 2006-07 school year began in September, district administrators and members of the board were slightly surprised to see that enrollment had dropped by 10 students. The enrollment for the 2006-07 school year is 6,133 pupils, which is 86 fewer pupils than administrators had projected for the year.

For the 2007-08 school year, officials are projecting a total of 6,158 pupils. In the 2008-09 school year the enrollment is expected to be 6,279 pupils; for the 2009-10 school year officials are projecting a total of 6,391 pupils; and in the 2010-11 school year that number is expected to rise to 6,393 pupils.

At a school board meeting on Nov. 14, Assistant Superintendent Marc Gaswirth said that based on the demographer's new set of projections, the district should expect the rate of growth to remain flat, if not decline a little bit. However, he said at some point the enrollment will increase again, the question is how much and when.

In the 1990s the K-8 district saw a rapid increase in enrollment, which Gaswirth said was driven by a significant number of new homes being built in Marlboro and a higher birth rate.

The number of building permits issued in the 1990s was sky high, he said. In the past four years the number of building permits issued has decreased by 60 percent, according to Gaswirth.

Board President Terry Spilken agreed with Gaswirth's assessment and said that in the 1990s the growth in the district was more than 200 students each year. After 2000 the annual increase dropped to fewer than 100 students a year. For the first time the district is seeing a decrease in enrollment, Spilken said.

Gaswirth attributed the flat enrollment to several factors, including a low birth rate; different demographics, which he said means young adults are waiting longer to have children; fewer new homes being built in the area; and a slow rate of resale homes being sold.

Officials said they do not believe this year's flat enrollment was a fluke.

"It's very odd to have only a one-year drop," Gaswirth said.

However, the assistant superintendent said he believes the district will need another school, but not for another three to five years.

"We could have 7,000 students in the district in the next 10 years," he added. "We are going to need more space eventually, the question is when."

Superintendent of Schools David Abbott agreed with Gaswirth and said there is no one, even the demographer, who believes Marlboro will not need a new school at some point in the future.

Abbott suggested that the board members continue to think about land possibilities for a future building because in 10 years if a new school is needed, there may not be any available property.

The superintendent noted that the district has already impacted numerous educational programs due to a lack of space. However, Abbott said if the projections are accurate, he would be able to handle a flat enrollment.

"I can manage based on what I see right now," he said about the demographer's report.

Abbott said he is able to use trailers in place of classrooms to alleviate some of the pressure. He added that the projections will show the state a plan for eliminating the trailers in several years when the enrollment levels off and even declines.

During comments from the board, Spilken expressed concern regarding the demographer's projections in kindergarten and special education students.

In the current school year, the district has 351 kindergarten pupils. In 2007-08 that number is expected to rise to 475 students, before declining to 396 kindergarten pupils in the 2010-11 school year, according to the report.

Spilken noted that the increase from this year to next year is more significant than any other grade level.

As for special education, this year the district has a total of 200 special education students. Next year the demographer projected a total of 156 special education students to be enrolled in the district.

Special education has been a driving force for space needs in the district, Spilken said. A drop of about 50 students from this year to next year is a dramatic change, he added. If the district drops that many special education students that could free up four to five classrooms, he said.

In response to Spilken's comments, Gaswirth said administrators do not rely on the demographer's numbers for kindergarten or special education as much as they do for general education projections in first through eighth grades. He said he believes a projected drop of about 50 special education students in one year is a little too high.

Spilken requested that the administration work on its own projections for the special education population in Marlboro so the board can get a better idea of what can be expected for the next school year.

Board member Joe Hsia asked administrators to contact private kindergartens in the area in order to determine how many pupils they have now who could be coming into Marlboro as first-graders next fall.

Abbott said the district has done that in the past and the feedback was not very viable.

Board member Andrea Miller said that due to today's lifestyle, she believes more parents are choosing not to send their children to half-day kindergarten schools such as MELC.

Miller said she believes because more families have two working parents and the mentality that children will get a better education at a full-day kindergarten, the projections for MELC may not correlate with the projections for the rest of the schools in the district. She said she believes the number of students entering Marlboro as first-graders will continue to grow.

Board member Cynthia Green said, "Even if the demographer is off by 100 or 200 students, the trend is clear."

Green said she is glad that the board did not go ahead with plans for a construction referendum. She believes that the board's decision on a new school has to be based on these numbers.