The Tabernacle School District is faced with a problem: the graduating eighth-grade class has 127 enrolled students.
In kindergarten?
Just 61.
“We’re losing students,” said superintendent George Rafferty.
There are 838 students currently enrolled in the school system, he said.
“When you’re small, every number affects you in a greater proportion than when you’re bigger,” he said. “We lose ten kids, it’s a substantial number for us.”
The drastic decrease in enrollment affects all operations in the school, he said. It affects future staff needs.
It affects state funding.
“We’ve lost money for this year,” Rafferty said. “It wasn’t substantial. Since state funding hasn’t been increasing anyway, we’ve already been behind.”
“It hurts,” he said.
Teachers have been following the students to accommodate needs. Two teachers in Tabernacle Elementary School are being transferred to fifth-grade at Kenneth R. Olson Middle School, a move that was previously “unheard of,” said Rafferty.
Now when teachers retire, the district has to question: “Do we need to replace them?”
Why is this happening?
According to Rafferty, the demographics and real estate market are the believed culprits.
Tabernacle is a small community in the Pinelands. There are restrictions on development and there are no apartment complexes.
“There’s limited housing choices,” he said. “Homes aren’t selling like they were before. New people aren’t moving in.”
The student enrollment decline is a concern for Rafferty, especially for the 2013–14 school year, he said.
Despite the decrease, the district is excited about introducing mandated full-day kindergarten for 2012–13 at no cost — a move that will immensely benefit the students and keep them in line with surrounding sending districts to Seneca High School, Rafferty said.
In keeping with cutting costs, the district renewed a shared-services agreement for administration with nearby Southampton Township School District for curriculum and special education, he said.
Previously, Tabernacle would spend $225,000 in administrative costs in those two areas. The agreement saves the district nearly $125,000 annually, he said.
“It’ll be our second year,” he said. Include that and savings accrue to $250,000.
“We’ll continue to work with them because they’ve been a great partner to us,” he said. “It’s been very successful. They’ve been doing an excellent job.”
The staff has been aligning curriculum between the two districts, he said, collaborating on common initiatives.
The district has embarked in conversations regarding technology and facilities shared agreements, but have not found easy, creative ways to go down those paths yet.
“We brainstorm,” he said. “That’s the big first step.”
The district examines what is best in meeting the needs of the students, the schools and the community.
“Tabernacle has certain needs,” he said. “It’s a constant work in progress.”
All schools are required to submit an annual professional development plan to the county office of education to show educational progress.
“Every year, near the end of the school year, the schools are required to review,” he said. “The plan is for next year.”
The plan is for teaching staff, both building level and district level teachers, and most of the information in the plan comes from the teachers, he said. It shows how teacher activities help the students to learn and what to do for the next school year.
“It used to be that the districts would send teachers out to a lot of workshops,” he said. “The professional development model now that is in place today has gotten away from that.”
The plan calls for more in-house professional development, he said.
“Presumably, that’s more meaningful for the teachers,” he said.
