From Montclair to Hackensack to Perth Amboy to Jefferson Township, we hear regular reports of school districts running out of money, sometimes due to lax fiscal oversight (Montclair) but mostly due to hiring too many staff members with short-term federal Covid relief money. Districts throughout New Jersey, as well as through the nation, will now have to “right-size” an unsustainably large workforce, especially given decreases in student enrollment.
With a tool called WANDA developed by Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, you can look up your own school district and see the number of employees added between 2018-2025 juxtaposed with changes in student enrollment. Staff are divided into teachers, paraprofessionals, non-teaching certified staff, administrators, and transport/food services.
Let’s look at Newark Public Schools (NPS), NJ’s largest district, with an annual operating budget of almost $1.6 billion. (About $1.4 billion comes from the state.) In addition, the district received more than $280 million in ESSER funds, or federal Covid money intended to be used for learning loss from lengthy school closures. The district was recently in the news because, according to TAPinto, Superintendent Roger Leon has been boasting about increases in enrollment — “we’re the one school district in the entire country had the highest student enrollment growth,” he told leaders at a recent gathering— but, in fact, “last month, Newark Public Schools announced that student enrollment had declined by 818 students, marking the first drop the district has seen in over five years.”…