One topic not raised in the Supervisor's campaign is the steady decline in the number of children ages 5 through 17 residing in Greenburgh. We can get precise numbers by consulting enrollment data at the New York State Education Dept website . There, we can find not only public school enrollment numbers broken out in various demographic categories, but also information about students residing in Greenburgh’s ten school districts attending non-public schools and those being home schooled. For the ten school districts that are entirely or partially within the Town of Greenburgh, we find the following:
Note: three school districts cross boundaries with adjacent communities: Tarrytown, Valhalla, and Pocantico Hills. The other seven are entirely within Greenburgh.
Guide to the columns:
1. The most recent available US Census estimates (ACS) for total population for each school district. This total population is 20,000 larger than the town of Greenburgh as it includes the portions of Tarryfown UFSD (i.e. Sleepy Hollow), Pocantico Hills SD, and Valhalla UFSD outside of the Town of Greenburgh.
2. Percentage of each school district's population that is children ages 5 through 17. This is a rough measurement of "appeal" of a school district for families with school age children. The Town of Greenburgh's 15% matches the 10 school districts (with their slightly larger population) derived from the census and NYSED data. This 15% is slightly below Westchester County and equivalent to New York State.
3 is the total '25-'26 school year public school K-12 enrollment for each district;
4 is the ‘25-‘26 non-public (private & parochial) total of students residing in that school district,
5 is the ‘25-‘26 home schooled total.
6 is the ‘25-‘26 % of non-public/home schooled students in each district - a number that varies widely.
7 is the ‘25-‘26 total of K-12 aged children residing in each district
8: the 5yr % change from '20-'21 (column 11) to the present year '25-'26 (column 7).
9: the 9yr % change from '16-'17 (column 13) to the present year '25-'26 (column 7)
The remaining columns are the total K-12 children residing in each district (adding public, non-public, and home schoolers) for the respective years.
NOTES: Over the last 9 years the school age (K-12) population in these 10 schools districts has dropped 4.4%. Most of that decrease (3.3% has come the past five years). Over the last 9 years, only the Ardsley School District has shown an increase of children ages 5 to 17 residing in the district, but since ‘21-‘22 even ASD (which is twice the size of Ardsley village and includes large areas of unincorporated Greenburgh) has seen a 2.4% school age decline. Over the past 9 years, Edgemont - which leads the town’s districts by a wide margin in overall % of school age residents - has seen a higher than average school age population drop of almost 7%. The outliers are both the smallest school district (Pocantico Hills) and the largest Greenburgh school district (Greenburgh Central), each having fallen in their population of school age children by 18% in the last 9 years.
Non-Public enrollment:
Greenburgh CSD: Out of a total K-12 population of 1,878, 18.2% of students are enrolled in non-public or home school settings (337 non-public, 4 home). Despite having the largest census population (23,106), GC has a remarkably low density of K-12 children—just 8%. GC has fewer K-12 children than adjacent Edgemont which has just over one-quarter of GC's total population and has a very high density of school age children. GC, however, has seen most of its dramatic drop in school age children among those attending non-public schools. Just five years ago, the number choosing non-public in GC was almost 26%, which was just about the highest such percentage in Westchester County. Eighty percent of GC’s non-public enrollment has been students attending parochial (mostly Catholic Church affiliated) schools. It can be surmised then that GC’s steep decline in school age children in recent years comes from families who would have chosen parochial education to not move to GC. Elmsford shares these trends. Surprisingly, GC’s public school K-12 enrollment has held steady the past 5 years, joining GC with Tarrytown and Valhalla as the only districts not to have such declines while the town as a whole saw 3.3% drop in school age children. GC’s historically low public school enrollment has stabilized as its demographics rapidly change.
In Contrast: to GC and Elmsford, districts like Ardsley UFSD (3.2%), Hastings-on-Hudson UFSD (3.3%), and Edgemont UFSD (3.6%) see the vast majority of their school-age residents attending local public schools.
Big Picture: One might assume that the Town of Greenburgh, long considered a suburb with several highly regarded school systems should have a higher % than average of school age children: in fact, the “name brand” school districts like Edgemont, Ardsley and Irvington do have school age populations over 20%. Still, all the school districts, either, in the 5 year or 9 year time frame have shown declines in the number of children ages 5 through 17. These trends are ongoing although Greenburgh’s overall population is increasing (and aging) amid the addition of new housing units.
Source: U.S Census.
These declines in the number of children parallel what is going on in New York State generally:https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/missing-kids-ny-public-school-enrollment-falls-again/
