HILLSBOROUGH: School growth figures revised

Demographer may explain report at Monday’s school board meeting

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
    School board members are expected Monday night to hear a report projecting enrollment in the schools.
    The consultant, Whitehall Associates, based in Kinnelon, has updated its report taking into account the Oct. 15 enrollment count mandated by the state.
    The report projects enrollment to grow to an estimated 7,559 in the 2016-17 school year, about 2.5 percent more than the 7,378 pupils reported this past October.
    Enrollment is an important consideration in staffing and use of facilities and sometimes leads to building expansion plans or reconfiguring the use of schools or their sending district.
    In the five-year period, the consultant estimated a 15.5 percent jump in the number of pupils in grades five and six, which are housed at the Auten Road Intermediate School.
    Comparing the current year enrollment versus 2016-17, foreseen are increases of 9.1 percent for the middle school (grades seven and eight) and 4.5 percent for the high school (grades nine through 12). It projects a decrease among the youngest pupils, including an overall 1.6 percent decrease in grades pre-kindergarten to four by 2016-17. Hillsborough has six schools for grades pre-kindergarten to four and one for middle-schoolers in seventh and eighth grades.
    Based on information from the township’s planning office, the report projects 697 new students into the district from new development in the township. The largest number is 209 expected to come from the remaining homes in the 293-home Country Classics development off Amsterdam Drive.
    Other large projected influxes of children are projected to be the 59 estimated to come from the Parkside development on Mountain View Road, the 150 from the apartments of the Gateway at Sunnymeade development off Fallon Road, and 158 children in the Route 206 Green Village apartment development now being reviewed by the township Planning Board.
    It also doesn’t have any projection for the estimated125 units of houses, townhomes and apartments in an Amwell Road Associates proposal.
    Hillsborough has been an area of fast growth over the decades. The total population doubled to 38,303 between the 1980 and 2010 censuses.