Demographic Study Report

By Amy Levere

January 26, 2006

On Tuesday evening, January 24, Dr. Lloyd Bishop, a demographer affiliated with NYU for more than 25 years, presented his preliminary report on the district’s projected enrollment and facility utilization over the next 10 years to the School Board and the community. Dr. Bishop described the four major areas he studied - demographics, enrollment projections, the current capacity of the schools, and a comparison of projected enrollments to capacity - and discussed each in some detail. 

In studying demographics, Dr. Bishop looked at the actual number of households, household size and household composition in the district.  He noted that in 2005 almost 30% of the households consisted of “nontraditional” homes- that is, one person or non-related persons, without children, and that 35% of homes had at least one child younger than 19. He also studied housing sales.  Since the district does not have much room for new construction, the most important factor to examine is the resale of existing homes.  Over the last eight years there have been 675 resales in the Murray district; Chatsworth, with the second highest number of resales, had 573. He noted that there is not a direct correlation between resales and increased enrollments, as not every buyer has children while others have very young kids so the enrollment impact is delayed. Another factor Dr. Bishop considered is private and parochial school attendance: for the last eight years, approximately 10% of our students attended nonpublic schools, although this year the number is 9.1% (a decrease of 76 kids). 

In his discussion of enrollment projections Dr. Bishop reported that past trends are very important in projecting future enrollments, and that projections are most reliable for five years in the future, although, as requested, he projected out for ten years.  He noted that Murray is the only school that has had increased enrollments for the past three years (6.1%, 1.6% and 11.1%, respectively), although for the past five years the Murray average increase, 1.5% (or 9 students), is slightly lower than that of Chatsworth (1.8% or 10 students).  Over the next five years Dr. Bishop projects an average increase of 12 students per year (1.8%) at Murray, with smaller increases at Chatsworth and Central.  For the five years after that the projected average growth at Murray is negligible.

Overall the school population is expected to grow by about 1% per year (an average of 55 students) over the next five years and about .6% per year (an average of 33 students) over the following five years.  

When the projected enrollment data for the next ten years is paired with the actual capacity of each of the schools in the district (which is determined based on our current class size limits and does not count “auxiliary” or pullout classrooms such as art and music classrooms) Murray is the only school in the district with a space squeeze: a shortage of one classroom increasing to four.  Dr. Bishop noted that this is not a terrible problem, and that the first thing to examine is what the auxiliary space is used for. Dr. Bishop, in response to a question, offered that redistricting students from Murray to other schools would not be a solution to the anticipated shortage of space there since each of the other elementary schools will be at or close to capacity themselves.

While enrollment at the middle and high schools will see steady increases, both school buildings have the capacity to handle this growth. 

Dr. Paul Fried, the district’s superintendent, noted that the Board’s next study session, February 7 at 7:30pm in the high school library classroom, would be considering the district’s capital plan, and that a further discussion of  the demographic report would be part of the agenda.(Since the writing of this report, the February 7 study session has been cancelled.)  He also mentioned that among possible next steps would be the formation of a task force to take a more in depth look at the report and its implications.   Dr. Bishop mentioned that his final report should be delivered in 30 days.