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Paterson school district rolls decline as charters grow

By: Joe Malinconico
Paterson Press

PATERSON - enrollment in the city school district has shrunk dramatically over the past decade, leaving it with almost 5,000 fewer students then it had in 2016.
..... The district's student population fell from 25,457 in 1916-1917 to 20,490 in 2025-2026. a 19.5% decline, according to a demographic study done by independent consultants for the Paterson Board of Education.
..... While the district's enrollment has plummeted, the number of students attending charter schools in Paterson has grown substantially, from 1.524 in 2015-2016 to 6,305 in 2024-2025, the study found.
..... The charter schools gained 4,781 students, while the district lost 4,967, the demographic report showed.
..... Local education advocates cautioned against anyone interpreting those numbers as evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between the charters' growth and the district's enrollment decline.
..... Charter school growth in Peterson has been consistent and has not had an impact on Paterson's enrollment in the past," said Theodore "TJ" Best, a former city school board member who currently serves as executive director of the Paterson Charter School round-table, which representativeness the seven charters in the silk city area.
..... "If anything, charter schools have helped Paterson avoid overcrowding because the city population was increasing," Best added. "Although charter schools may play a small part, I thing the bigger issue has to do with immigrant families refusing to send their kids to school or moving out of the city completely."
..... Best said the charter schools in Paterson still have 4,500 children on their admission waiting lists. That number is a cumulative one, which counts someone five times if the same child is on five different schools' waiting list.
..... Rosie grant, executive director of the Paterson Education Fund advocacy group, noted that the state during the past decade has approved the opening of new charters expansions of existing ones.
..... "Parents like to have alternatives, especially when it comes to their children's education," Grant said. "there's a perception - and I don't know if the data supports it - that the charters provide a better and safer environment.
..... "If that's parent's perception, that's where they're going to send their children," she said.

Reduced birth rates, outward migration

..... The consultants cited reduced birth rates in Paterson as one factor for the district's enrollment decline. The report said Paterson, based on mothers' street addresses, had 2,537 births in 2017 but only 2,141 in 2025.
..... The report said "Outward migration" from the city school district was a key factor in the student numbers.
..... "Outward migration is caused by families with children moving out of the community, perhaps due to difficulty in finding employment or affordable housing, the report said.
..... "Outward migration in the school district can also be caused by parents choosing to withdraw their children from public school to attend private, parochial or charter schools, to be home-schooled, or to attend a different public school district," the report said.
..... The consultants said"the reasons for migration are not explicitly known, in Paterson because there have been no exit interviews with families leaving the district.
..... The demographic study said the reduction in enrollment in the Paterson district is likely to continue, with the number of students possibly drooping below 16,000 by 2030-2031. But the study said those projections need to be updated every year to take into account changes in enrollment trends.

Impact of new housing, closing of schools

..... The report noted that the Paterson Planning Board in 2024 and 2025 approved the construction of 746 new apartments in the city. But the study estimated that the new housing may result in only 136 more students for the Paterson district, largely because many of the units will be studio or one-bedroom apartments.
..... The demographic study did not consider housing developments approved before 2024, including several projects that will include more than 100 apartments such as the construction being finished at the Paterson Armory site and the former Greenbaum furniture location.
..... Parents and community leaders are predicting that more students will leave the district because of the elimination of Paterson's four choice elementary schools, which takes effect this month, [07/2026] along with the plans to split the state's top ranked gifted program in 2027.
..... "What's indefensible is that the charters continue to pull students from the public school district," said John McEntree Jr., president of the union that represents Paterson's teachers.
..... McEntee said the growth of the charters has allowed people running the charters to make substantial amounts of money. He noted that the state Education Department has approved an additional 1,700 charter school slots in Paterson by 2030.
..... "I don't know of the public schools in Paterson will be recognizable by then," the union leader said.

Statewide enrollment down, but Newark and Trenton rose

..... Paterson's reduction in students in the past decade was greater than that of every other school district in New Jersey, according to a Paterson Press analysis of state Education Department enrollment data.
..... Closest to Paterson were Passaic, where enrollment fell by 3,239; Camden, which dropped by 2,347 students' and Jersey City, which lost 1,955 students the enrollment data showed.
..... Statewide, enrollment went down by 15,817 students form 2016 to 2026.
..... In contrast, the Newark school district gained more than 7,300 students in the past 10 years, while the number of students in the Trenton district rose by 3,400.
..... The demographic study showed that the Paterson district's enrollment declined gradually yer-to-year, until there was a 2,400-student loss during COVID. the district then had a 1,500-student increase in 2023-2023 followed by a 2,00-student decrease in 2023-2024.
..... Meanwhile, the charters in Paterson continued to show rises in enrollment every year since 2016, even during the pandemic.
..... "This is not about one sector winning and another losing," said Best, from the charter trade group. "Every student in Paterson deserves access to an excellent public education, whether they attend a district school or a public charter school.
..... "Rather than viewing these trends as a competition, we should see them as an opportunity to better understand what families value and to work together to ensure every public school in our city is preparing students for success," he said.

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