Student Population Boom Stretches Red Bank Resources

For the first time during her tenure, Red Bank Superintendent Laura Morana said a middle school class has broached the 100-student mark, with its fourth grade class entering the school year with a grand total of 101 students.

That number is significant, she said, as it likely signals the start of an upward trend of increased class sizes in Red Bank’s public schools, one that is the result of the district’s community outreach efforts as well as the borough’s population increase over the past few years.

It also serves as further proof of something administrators have anticipated for quite some time and are hoping to remedy as soon as possible: that the district is running out of room.

“We can’t build, we’re not going to be able to build,” Morana said following the meeting Tuesday. “Our goal is to be able to maximize the space that is available throughout the town.”

What that means, exactly, Morana said, is developing partnerships. Already the district has traveled down that route, outsourcing much of its ever-expanding preschool program to local organizations like the YMCA, and seeking additional classroom space for the preschool classes it runs itself.

At that meeting, the board approved a lease for more than $5,700 a month between the district and St. Anthony’s for the use of four classrooms, a gym, an office, and other shared common space to accommodate four preschool classes it can’t fit at its primary school. And still, with more than 250 three and four year olds already enrolled in the preschool program, there’s a waiting list.

Student population growth isn’t limited to Red Bank’s preschool as evidenced by the growing middle school population. In 2006, Morana said, the district had approximately 750 students. Now, the student population is nearly 1,300. Even subtracting the district’s preschoolers, that’s nearly a 300-student increase in just five years.

Finding new digs to accommodate them all isn’t an option now, Morana said, and likely won’t be barring some kind of miracle involving a boatload of free cash and a chunk of land presented to the district as a gift.

“We’re beginning to see an increase in the (preschool) program and the rest of the student population,” she said. “As the year progresses we’re going to try and approach enrollment in a creative way.”