156,113 students enrolled in New York Jewish schools for the September 2018 school year grades Kindergarten through 12’th. This is a jump of 4,302 students from the 151,811 students a year earlier, and enrollment this year is 12.5% higher or 17,437 more students than five years ago; the September 2013 school year when the count was 138,676 students. The current year has 36,137 more students than ten years ago, and 52,379 more students, a 50.5% rise compared to 15 years ago when the count was 103,734 students in the September 2003 school year. The data was compiled by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council (OJPAC) from stats made available by the New York State Education Department. All data in this year’s OJPAC report include ungraded schools and half day kindergarten; unlike past reports when we used a narrower count.

The counties with the most K-12 students in Jewish schools this year are:

  

Brooklyn with 83,546 students; up from 82,046 students last year; up from 78,778 students five years ago (the September 2013 school year) and up by 13,805 students or 19.8% from 69,701 students ten years ago (the September 2008 school year).

 

Rockland with 28,808 students; up from 27,169 students last year; up from 22,087 students five years ago, and up by 12,038 students or 71.7% from 16,770 students ten years ago.

 

Orange with 14,019 students; up from 13,400 students last year; up from 10,338 students five years ago, and up by 6,137 students or 77.8% from 7,882 students ten years ago.

 

Queens with 11,548 students; up from 11,389 students last year; up from 10,243 students five years ago, and up by 2,552 students or 28.3% from 8,996 students ten years ago.

  

Nassau with 8,007 students; up from 7,816 students last year; up from 7,222 students five years ago, and up by 1,594 students or 33.2% from 6,413 students ten years ago.

 

Manhattan with 4,402 students; down from 4,441 students last year; down from 4,508 students five years ago, and down a few parentage points from 4,565 students ten years ago

 

Jewish Community growth has shifted from Brooklyn to Rockland and Orange counties in New York, and into Lakewood in New Jersey. Consider: While Jewish school enrollment this year is 50.5% higher from fifteen years ago, it jumped 147% in Orange County; 105% in Rockland and only 37.9% in Brooklyn. The change is starker the last five years when Jewish school growth in Orange is up 35.6%; Rockland is up 30.4%; statewide is up 12.5%, and Brooklyn is up only 6.0%. Lakewood takes the cake with a 57% jump in enrollment the last six years from 20,968 students in the September 2012 school year to 32,902 this year, per data that OJPAC collected from the New Jersey Department of Education. Lakewood Jewish schools have almost 33,000 students which does not include Pre-K.

 

The Jewish community has an ever-increasing portion of the nonpublic school enrollment in New York. Consider:

 

The 103,724 students fifteen years ago, in 2003, was 22.5% of the 460,532 nonpublic school students statewide.

 

The 119,976 students ten years ago, in 2008, was 27.9% of the 429,516 nonpublic school students statewide.

 

The 138,676 students five years ago, in 2013, was 33.7% of the 411,391 nonpublic school students statewide.

 

The 156,113 students the current school year, September 2018, is 39.1% of the 398,373 nonpublic school students statewide.

 

When looking at New York nonpublic school community (grades K-12 and ungraded schools) without the Jewish community, enrollment dropped from 356,808 students fifteen years ago to 242,260 this year; a drop of 114,548 students or 32.1%. The most consequential drop was among Roman Catholic schools which saw a reduction of 46.0% or a drop of 114,386 students from 248,394 students fifteen years ago to 134,008 students this year. Muslim school enrollment rose 31.7% or from 3,533 students fifteen years ago to 4,653 this year. Jewish school enrollment in the last fifteen years as noted at the top of the article, rose by 52,379 students or 50.5%. K-12 Public School enrollment went from 2.843 million students fifteen years ago to 2.629 million students last year; a drop of 7.5% in fourteen years. Essentially, the (Orthodox) Jewish community is by far the fastest growing quantified community in New York.

 

Each of the 156,113 students enrolled in Jewish schools receive, on average, less than $1,500 in tax-funded services a year (funds are higher for some students in NYC due to Vouchers, but the funds are quite less than $1,500 for most other students). The less than $1,500 per students is well below the more than $21,000 invested in every public-school student. The gap of more than $19,500 per student saved taxpayers at least $3 billion in education funding the school year.