This post covers public K-12 school enrollment trends in New Jersey during the last decade. Special attention is paid to Gloucester County and Glassboro. A wordier analysis will appear in The Gaffer.
Context
From 2010 to 2020, the school-age child population1 plumetted while overall population grew in the US, NJ, GlouCo, and Glassboro. The table below shows data from the last 2 Decennial Censuses. Of those places, population growth and child loss was slowest in GlouCo, but both were by far the fastest in Glassboro.
| Place | Population | % Change (2010-20) |
|---|---|---|
| US | Total | 7.4% |
| US | Children, 5-17 | 1.3% |
| US | Children, 5 and below | -8.9% |
| NJ | Total | 5.7% |
| NJ | Children, 5-17 | -1.2% |
| NJ | Children, 5 and below | -7.2% |
| Gloucester County | Total | 4.9% |
| Gloucester County | Children, 5-17 | -6.0% |
| Glassboro | Total | 24.6% |
| Glassboro | Children, 5-17 | -14.4% |
For reference, below are the counts of children aged 5-17 years old in GlouCo and Glassboro, calculated by me from Census data. Unfortunately, these exclude 18-year-old high schoolers.
| Place | Population | Year | Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gloucester County | Children, 5-17 | 2010 | 52,869 |
| Gloucester County | Children, 5-17 | 2020 | 49,674 |
| Glassboro | Children, 5-17 | 2010 | 2,545 |
| Glassboro | Children, 5-17 | 2020 | 2,178 |
Gloucester County
The rest of this post looks at the NJ Department of Education’s annual Fall enrollment reports. These include all publicly funded schools in NJ, including charters. They exclude private schools or homeschoolers, for which no good data exist anywhere.
GlouCo’s K-12 enrollment shrank by -6.9% over the decade from academic year 2013 to 2023, the most recent year available. After growing for 2 years straight, GlouCo once again lost students in 2023.
These towns’ school districts shrank the most in the last decade:
- Wenonah
- Pitman
- Greenwich Township
- South Harrison Township
- Glassboro
These towns’ school districts grew the most:
- Woodbury Heights
- Woodbury
- Paulsboro
- Clayton
- National Park
See also the map below.2
This map more clearly illustrates the trends:
Even nice towns like Pitman, wealthy enclaves like Harrison Township (aka Mullica Hill), and congested commercial strips like Washington and Mantua Townships (aka Turnersville and Sewell, respectively), all lost K-12 enrollment in the last decade.
Glassboro
From Fall 2013 to 2023, Glassboro School District’s K-12 enrollment fell -13.7%. That’s almost double Gloucester County’s -6.9% drop, but half of neighboring Pitman’s -27.7% drop. However, for the last 2 years Glassboro gained students, while GlouCo overall lost students last year. Glassboro isn’t back to pre-Pandemic enrollment–they had 1,815 students in Fall 2019–but they now have more students than they did in Fall 2020.
PK-12
Glassboro School District offered pre-school in the last 10 years. PK-12 enrollment changed similarly to K-12 enrollment–except it grew for the last 3 years straight.
