School enrollment in decline

According to data released by the state, student enrollment numbers for the Oceanside and Island Park school districts have been in a steady decline since the 2003-04 academic school year.

In the 2003-04 school year, Oceanside’s enrollment was at 6,369 students, while in the 2010-11 school year, it was 6,052 students. In the same time period, Island Park’s enrollment numbers dropped to 681 from 795.

The district superintendents are not phased by the decline, however.

“It’s not really a big decline, over eight years,” said Oceanside Superintendant Herbert Brown. “Part of it is the birth rate in Nassau County has gone down in the last ten years, so it’s a Nassau County issue, not an Oceanside issue.”

Island Park Superintendent Rosemary Bovino agreed with Brown and pointed out that her district had actually seen a slight increase in enrollment for the 2011-12 year over the previous year.

Bovino said that the district has held a number of programs to attract new members with young children into the community. “If people get to see our unique programs, like the beach program, they might move to our district,” Bovino said. “There are many things we’ve been doing to try and get the news out about our community.”

The numbers released by New York State, Bovino said, also did not comprise the number of high school students Island Park sent to high schools outside of the district. While they do not attend schools in Island Park, the taxes paid by residents are still used to pay for their tuition.

“The high school would claim those students as part of their numbers, and so we would have a high per-student cost, because we weren’t showing those kids as part of our total,” Bovino said. “It was ridiculous and needed to be changed, and now we received a directive saying that all those students should be noted as Island Park students.”

Brown said that the decline in enrollment has not affected the district much, as it has coincided with a number of cuts to the budget in an effort to keep taxes from being raised. “It means fewer classes and we didn’t have to replace as many teachers,” Brown said. “It’s not a good thing and its not a bad thing, it’s just something we need to deal with.”