Enrollment Up in Chatham Schools

Despite a larger number of students enrolled in Chatham schools this year, Superintendent Jim O'Neill said Tuesday night that overall class sizes are down.

A total of 3,992 students are enrolled in Chatham schools for the 2010-2011 academic year. O'Neill estimated that somewhere between 135 and 140 of that number are new students who were not enrolled in the School District of the Chathams last year.

That number of new enrollments is down from approximately 150 new students in the 2009-2010 school year, but up from the average of 120 in previous years. O'Neill hypothesized that the economic conditions of 2009 and 2010 would account for the rise in new enrollments, saying that parents who might otherwise have enrolled their children in private schools instead opted for the public school system.

O'Neill also said that around 50 students from the 2009-2010 school year moved out of the district over the summer.

The numbers of students enrolled at each school are as follows: 358 students at Milton Avenue School (which had the biggest drop in enrollment from last year of any school in the district); 454 students at Washington Avenue School; 497 students at Southern Boulevard School; 609 students at Lafayette School; 962 students at Chatham Middle School; and 1,112 students at Chatham High School.

O'Neill also reported to the Board that New Jersey Monthly recently ranked Chatham High School the eighth best high school in the state (and the highest ranked high school in Morris County), though he joked that "I believe it's off by about eight."

O'Neill said that hiring additional teachers "made class sizes more reasonable" in the district.

In his visits to the elementary schools on Tuesday, O'Neill said he did not witness nor hear any reports of younger students crying or getting upset at going back to school. Teachers and administrators told him that everyone seemed excited and happy to be back in classes.

Though it will take approximately two weeks to determine traffic flow and safety, O'Neill said that he noticed the sidewalks on Lafayette and Elmwood Avenues were a "tremendous improvement" that "enhance[d] safety," in spite of the protests against cutting trees down to make room for the sidewalks.

The Board of Education next meets on Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the Township Municipal Building.