OCEAN CITY — One issue the Ocean City Board of Education will be grappling with in the next term and beyond is the ongoing decline of the student population in the district.
The district has been able to prop itself up in recent years through the School Choice program at the high school that brings in about 190 students from the region to the district, and with them state education funds.
That does nothing to solve the drop in local students.
A study by Statistical Forecasting LLC presented to the board in June shows a predicted decline in the district population of 217 to 242 students by the 2029-30 school year (compared to 2024-25).
That is on top of a drop of enrollment from 2015-16, when it was 2,142, to 1,701 in 2024-25.
The analysis shows the population of Ocean City, which hit its peaks of about 15,500 in 1990 and 2000, had fallen to 11,229 at the start of this decade. It is projected to be at 11,228 in 2040.
“We do recognize that enrollment is an issue,” said Kevin Barnes, president of the Ocean City school board who was re-elected to another term Nov. 4. He said that would be part of the “overriding focus” of the board.
“It really just comes down to the lack of warm bodies. The birth rate is down, the cost of housing is way high. We’re going to have to face reality and we’re going to probably see a reduction by about 200 students by the end of five years per the demographic study,” Barnes said.
In spite of the expected drop, he said a priority is not to reduce programming for the district’s students.
“We want the kids to have the educational opportunities that they have now. And we also want them to have the extracurricular activities — sports, theater,” Barnes said.
Ocean City is a receiving district, taking students from Corbin City, Longport and Upper Township for the high school and K-12 students from Sea Isle City.
Barnes suggested one option may be trying to expand the Interdistrict Public School Choice program, which was begun in 2010 in New Jersey. The Ocean City district was an early adopter and is one of the top three in the state for the number of students accepted from other schools.
“I’d like to see the number of seats expanded,” he said.
However, the statewide program has not in the past allowed Ocean City to increase its allotment of School Choice seats.
“We are definitely going to have to make better use of our facilities. We’re going to have some excess capacity that maybe we try to get creative and figure out a way we can maybe produce some revenue for that,” he said. “For example, do we somehow fill the seats with preschool students?”
Currently, according to the analysis, Ocean City Intermediate School is the only one in the district that is above its capacity. For 2024-25, the capacity was 291 but the enrollment was 322, a difference of 31 seats.
The high school was operating close to capacity with 1,104 students, but able to handle 1,142, a difference of 38 seats.
The primary school is where there was a lot of extra capacity, with an enrollment of 275 students but capacity for 527.
By the 2029-30 school year, it is expected there will be an extra capacity of 263 seats at the primary school, 11 at the intermediate school and 202 at the high school, which would see its enrollment drop to 940.
Birth rates are down across the nation, likewise in the resort, and it doesn’t take a statistical analysis to show that the cost of housing in Ocean City will continue to be largely prohibitive for families with young children.
That problem has existed for years in the resort and even when zoning changes were made to allow some smaller homes on small lots, a move meant to encourage families to move here, the prices of those quickly became prohibitive as well.
“I think the average home, a single-family home, putting aside the condos, is like $2.4 million. I couldn’t afford that,” Barnes said.
While some critics of the school district have claimed part of the student population drop was parents opting out of the public school system to home-school their children, the school board president said he has not seen any statistics to back that up.
“I would love to see some sort of number supporting the idea that people are leaving public school because they want any sort of religious education. I just I don’t see it,” he said.
Barnes pointed out he had hoped he would have been able to send his daughters to parochial school here in Ocean City for their early grades, but St. Augustine Regional School closed in 2006.
He acknowledged there are families who choose to send their children to St. Augustine Prep High School in Richland, but that has been a private school option for more than a half-century.
Overall, however, he wants to ensure Ocean City students continue to have the education that exists now.
“I like all the opportunities that my kids have. It’s important for their education,” Barnes said. “It’s for their education. I’ve said this a thousand times, and I’ll keep on saying it’s that symbiotic relationship — great schools, great community; great community, great schools. I don’t know what the answer is to the lack of enrollment.”
“I mean, my kids are 13 and 15,” Barnes said. They attend the intermediate school and high school.
“I’d love to see them graduate, go out and get a college education and come back and raise their kids here. How realistic is that with the (home) values? I don’t know.”
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff