Demographer: Birth Rate Drop Offsets New Enrollment

An increase in students from proposed residential development in Hillsborough will be offset by a drop in birthrates, according to a report from the school district’s demographer, Whitehall Associates.

The report predictions mean it’s unlikely that the district will need to build to handle the students from any new residences in town.

“I think the big take-home message is that we’re not building any more schools and we’re not losing any more schools,” Board President Steven Paget said. “We’re just sort of staying status quo, which is just fine.”

The report calculates the potential enrollment numbers for each grade in each school for 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. The demography firm uses a municipality’s live births, a number it receives from the state, and the enrollment numbers taken on Oct. 15 of each school year in its report, while also taking township growth into account, according to Joseph Richardson, Whitehall Associates Representative.

But while the town saw double-digit growth in each ten-year period since 1950, it did not see the same growth rate in 2000 to 2010, Richardson said. In addition, birth rates dropped from 2005-2006 to 2009, he said.

“The births have dropped significantly from 2005-06 down to the last one we have are the ones that would be coming in in 2014-15,” Richardson said. “We see this all over Northern New Jersey.  We track that cohort down and make our predictions.  .  . We’re going from 7,251 to 6,862 here. That’s a drop of about 516 students, an about 7 percent drop.”

In addition to birth records and enrollment trends, the demographer’s firm incorporates housing number from developments that haven’t yet been built. Richardson receives those numbers from Township Planner Robert Ringelheim, he said. The developments include several pending developments, including affordable and special needs apartments and townhouses from Amwell Road Associates. Plans for those apartments have not yet been presented to the township’s Planning Board.

“Within this district, you have a sizeable amount of residential development that is going to add in 697 youngsters in grades k through 12,” Richardson said. “. . .But we don’t know when those developments are going to come on line. .  .Those 697 students will bring the total, five years out to 7,559 students, which is a little bit of an increase from what you have now.”

Whitehall Associates does not incorporate the students from potential developments—ones that have not yet been constructed or approved for construction—until the final year of its five-year report.

“We don’t know when those developments are going to come on line,” Richardson said. “So we don’t add those developments in until the last year.”

But board member Greg Gillette noted that the plan constraints require the district to predict for all development possibilities, whether those plans evolve or not.

“Our school enrollment peaked a number of years ago, and it’s coming down since then and we’ve had a downward trend,” Gillette said. “The birthrate science behind that is very solid, very predictive. It’s something we should rely on without question. The impact from development is somewhat less reliable, in my opinion. . .When I look at these developments, I see some that got approved in 2007 and never saw a shovel and probably never will. But I also see some that, yes, are sure to come, but are not going to be built out to their full extent in five years. Maybe ten.”

“If you’re going to have any increase at all, the best way to have it is from new residential development, not from birthrate, “ he added. “The impact is coming from new development that will be offset by tax revenue.