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In an effort to spice up enrollment, Newark Public Faculties will spend greater than 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 {dollars} to rehire a advertising agency to recruit college students into district colleges.
Faculty board members final week voted to approve a $276,790 contract with Memphis-based Caissa Public Technique to recruit as much as 311 college students starting July by means of June 2026. Newark officers didn’t say which college students they aimed to recruit, however Caissa has been contracted by districts corresponding to Paterson and Indianapolis Public Faculties to draw college students from constitution colleges. The district additionally contracted with the agency in 2022 to extend enrollment at a highschool and three elementary colleges.
The brand new contract comes as the town’s public colleges, together with constitution colleges, that are privately run however publicly funded, have seen will increase in pupil enrollment. Faculty and neighborhood leaders have raised questions concerning the district’s rising funds to constitution colleges, which make up Newark Public Faculties’ second-largest expenditure, in accordance with subsequent 12 months’s faculty finances.
Throughout June’s faculty board assembly, Superintendent Roger León mentioned the district has been recruiting college students to attend Newark public colleges, and that the district’s methods, which embrace radio commercials, billboards, and neighborhood occasions amongst others, have been efficient. “The explanation why we’re doing what we’re doing is as a result of we even have outcomes,” he mentioned.
The district has used Caissa to recruit college students “for a couple of years now,” Nancy Deering, the district’s appearing communications director, mentioned in an electronic mail to Chalkbeat final week.
In March 2022, board members awarded Caissa a two-year contract at a price to not exceed $276,790 to extend enrollment at Lincoln Elementary, George Washington Carver Elementary, Speedway Elementary, and Malcolm X Shabazz Excessive Faculty. The district additionally offered Caissa with pupil enrollment knowledge and withdrawal data so the corporate might conduct “focused canvassing of scholars” and “higher perceive why college students could have left the district within the first place,” in accordance with a 2022 board decision.
Between fall 2022 and fall 2024, enrollment elevated at three of the faculties: At George Washington, pupil enrollment elevated by 75 college students, at Lincoln by 79, and at Shabazz by 82. Nonetheless, at Speedway Elementary, enrollment dropped by 11 college students, from 566 college students within the 2022-23 faculty 12 months to 555 college students within the 2023-24 faculty 12 months.
Below the contract accredited final week, Caissa will recruit new college students by utilizing secret customers, door knocking, and market and pattern evaluation, in accordance with the request for companies proposal final week. The agency can even use present knowledge to establish “key enrollment drivers for the districts,” the request specified. In accordance with an instance on the agency’s web site, Caissa estimates {that a} district might see a return of $840,750 if it recruits 150 college students, primarily based on state and native {dollars} at $6,500 per pupil.
Traditionally, Newark has been one of the crucial underfunded faculty districts primarily based on the state’s faculty funding method, which makes use of a weighted pupil method to provide districts monetary assist along with native taxes. Subsequent faculty 12 months, Newark will obtain an extra $101 million in funding from New Jersey, making up 82.3% of the district’s finances.
Regardless of the 8.8% improve in state funding subsequent faculty 12 months, district leaders say Newark stays $112 million underneath its native justifiable share of property taxes, which it has not raised since 2022.
For the 2024-25 faculty 12 months, the district estimates a $27,050 per pupil price.
Since his appointment to superintendent in Could 2018, León has been clear about his intention to cease constitution faculty enlargement, reclaim public faculty area, and broaden the district. When the state took management of the district between 1995 and 2020, state-appointed superintendents closed many public colleges whereas the constitution sector quickly grew.
However the district, which now enrolls about 42,000 pre-Ok to twelfth grade college students, modified in measurement after constitution colleges got here to Newark in 1997 when North Star Academy and Robert Deal with Academy grew to become the primary constitution colleges within the metropolis to welcome college students. These constitution colleges grew in enrollment till the 2021-22 faculty 12 months and in 2023, the district surpassed constitution progress, in accordance with a Chalkbeat knowledge evaluation of New Jersey’s fall enrollment knowledge between 2019 and 2024.
Constitution colleges proceed to teach greater than a 3rd of the town’s public faculty college students and subsequent faculty 12 months, the district is offering constitution colleges with $401 million, with $391 million paid on to these colleges, per subsequent 12 months’s finances.
The district obtained two bids for pupil recruitment companies, together with one from Caissa and one other from Affect Consulting Enterprises. The price listed on Caissa’s proposal expenses the district $890 per pupil enrolled for the primary two years, which the district has agreed to pay for 311 college students. The identical quantity might be charged per pupil recruited for an extra two years if Caissa’s contract is renewed. Affect charged $768 plus a 6% media shopping for price per pupil for the primary two years and $883 per pupil plus a 6% media shopping for price for the third and fourth years if its contract was renewed.
Throughout Tuesday’s board assembly, member Crystal Williams, who voted towards the decision to rent Caissa, requested why the district is spending cash to rent the agency and recommended that these funds go into lecture rooms as a substitute.
“We already pay for advertising. We already put up billboards. We already do bus indicators. Why do we have to pay a advisor, a advertising staff, to exit and harass individuals who have already made their choice of the place they need to ship their children to high school?” Williams added.
In response, board member Vereliz Santana went on to level to the district’s overrepresentation of weak college students and its wrestle to rent and retain bilingual academics and supply extra particular schooling companies.
This fall, the district expects to see greater than 11,000 English language learners and greater than 7,000 college students with disabilities who require specialised companies corresponding to speech therapists, classroom aides, and bilingual academics.
Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, masking public schooling within the metropolis. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
