The township school district’s director of elementary education recently gave a presentation regarding projected enrollment increases and recommended adding to school building space rather than making boundary changes.
George Guy highlighted the increases expected at schools that include Clara Barton and Horace Mann elementary schools and Rosa Middle School. At Barton, there are currently 478 students, a number projected to get to 667 by the 2028-’29 school year. The school’s capacity is 556.
There are 298 students enrolled at Mann, above the 280-student capacity. That number is expected to be 349 in 2028-’29. At Rosa, there are currently 785 students, with a projected enrollment in three years of 864. School capacity is 813.
The district is currently recommending expansion at Rosa and Barton, but not Mann.
Discussion about elementary school redistricting goes back almost two years, when the school system’s Strategic Planning Committee raised concerns about growth that could overwhelm building capacity. Guy highlighted solutions the district has considered, including changing the boundaries from which schools draw students, creating more special education and ESL (English as a Second Language) programs or increasing building size.
As for boundary adjustments, Guy explained that Barton would see 150 students – or 30% of the population – impacted, and James Johnson Elementary would have 268 students, or 59% affected.
“Looking at boundary adjustment, that’s a lot of disruption,” he noted. “We look at the community feedback, which we wanted to take into strong consideration. And the administration is not recommending boundary adjustments at this time.
“Let me say that again: The administration is not recommending boundary adjustments at this time.”
Guy also said that adding new special education programs would impact both students and parents.
“Shifting programing could create additional stressors for students and staff and families … so we certainly don’t want to move programs to alleviate overcrowding if it causes additional stressors,” he said, “which are going to be problematic with regards to special education programing.”
Adding more ESL programs, Guy advised, won’t help with overcrowding.
“We looked at the opportunity of creating an additional magnet to significantly support other ESL students on the East side,” he stated. “But even if we did – and more than likely we will – that will not significantly address overcrowding.”
Options left to alleviate overcrowding include adding more classrooms to existing buildings; preliminary recommendations for the board include expansion at Clara Barton and Rosa Middle by September of 2028. Guy suggested the district could also monitor enrollment trends at Mann and conduct a demographic analysis in 2026-’27.
As far as paying for any new construction, Guy suggested the district could use some funds from bond referendum interest. Business Administrator Jason Schimpf said there is about $24 million available to use for capital projects, and estimated expansion at Rosa and Barton would cost roughly $7 million each for six to eight classrooms at both buildings.
Board member Bridget Palmer asked Schimpf if the district could use bond referendum interest to pay for other projects, but he advised against using the one-time funds for recurring costs.
” … That would not be an intelligent or wise use,” he responded, “to kick our budgetary problems down the road a bit by utilizing (referendum interest) …”
Board President Gina Winters suggested expanding only the schools that are expected to have additional enrollment, including Barton.
“After listening to the community, especially the feedback session at high school West,” she said, “I felt like for me, it was really transformational in centering my thinking around, we know where the growth is going to be. The growth is going to be at the Clara Barton community. We know that there’s all these apartments going up and those will be future Clara Barton students.
“So the space should be where the students are.”
While the district recommends expanding Rosa and Barton, Superintendent Kwame Morton said Mann is not being considered because of uncertain projections.
“While we have projections to suggest that Mann will be at 349 in 2028-2029, we’re not quite sure what that will look like in the years after ’28-’29,” he said. “We don’t know if that will hold just yet. We don’t believe that it’s sound or wise to recommend at this point permanent addition onto that building, because those numbers haven’t really been as steady there, and they’re heavily predicated based upon the programmatic design.”
Board member Miriam Stern said while she supports expansion, she wants the district to do something about Mann and to keep an eye on Richard Stockton Elementary. Morton responded that he will continue to examine both Stockton and Woodcrest Elementary.
