While officials expected to have scores of new faces at school next year thanks to a new school choice program that would admit out-of-town students to Hoboken schools, state figures released this month show that not even a school bus could be filled with the newcomers. As the window to take advantage of the state program closed last month, only 18 students that do not live in the Hoboken school district opted to enroll in schools in the mile-square city. School officials had hoped for as many as 160 new students. But they said last week that they expect more to enroll in future years. Of the 18 commuting students, 16 will enter the ninth grade at Hoboken High School and two of them will enter the sixth grade at Brandt Middle School. Only students going into the sixth and ninth grades were allowed to apply. One of the newcomers hails from as far away as Newark, but most of them will be coming from Jersey City, West New York and Union City. Board of Education President David Anthony said that he was confident the program would continue to grow. “Just getting the program off the ground is the hardest part,” he said. “Now that the program is up and running we will see more parents and students inquiring about it. The most powerful marketing tool that we have is the word of mouth. When these kids go home they will talk to their friends, and their parents will talk to other parents, and hopefully they will have positive experiences that will translate into more students taking advantage of the program in the future.” The program, which just began this year, is a state-funded initiative designed to increase choices that students and parents have in public education by providing state funds to school districts that accept children from out of town. In its first year, 10 districts across the state were selected to serve as the original choice schools in New Jersey, including Hoboken. State officials plan to gradually introduce school choice in districts around the state over the next five years until at least one open district exists in each county. The Hoboken school district will receive about $8,000 in state funds for every out of town student that chooses to come to the city for school. Officials estimate that in five years, 580 students will commute to the city for their schooling. “We aren’t going to accept more than that,” said Anthony. “That’s the number that we believe we can take without it becoming at all detrimental to the students that we already have.” Officials said that they would have been much closer to achieving that goal today if the state had given them more time to publicize the program. “We were selected in December to participate in this program and according to the state statute, parents had to make their decisions by January 3,” said Anthony. “It was not a lot of time, especially when you consider that the holidays were in there.” In the future, the school board plans to open the program up to more students than just rising sixth and ninth graders. “Originally we thought we would have this program only for transition years like the sixth and the ninth grades, because those are times when everybody in the class is moving to a new school building, so we thought the transition would be easier,” he said. “But we got a lot of interest from parents with younger kids, so we are going to make some changes to open the program up for them.” No matter how many students ultimately take advantage of the program, Anthony said that it was important to offer students as many high quality educational choices as possible. “Some are not popular with some people, others are not popular with others,” he explained. “But the more choices we give people, the more competitive it gets, and the competition helps kids. Choices are what makes a difference in having a good product in anything, including education.”
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