Further Analysis of the 2000 and 2001 Hoboken District Audit Around Seating Capacity (J-18)

Thanks for the feedback I've received for pointing out the importance of New Jersey’s Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act (EFCFA), enacted in July 2000. This law introduced new minimum square footage requirements per student, which understandably would impact how seating capacity is calculated (see Chart 1). However, I want to continue to highlight a significant and puzzling shift in the Hoboken School District's reported seating capacity between 2000 and 2001—a change that deserves closer scrutiny (see Table 1). 

Those new requirements alone do not account for the full extent of the district’s reported reduction. In the 2000 official audit, the Hoboken School District reported a total seating capacity of 5,214. Applying the new square footage standards from the 2000 law, the expected adjusted capacity should have been around 4,197 seats.

Yet, the 2001 audit shows a much steeper drop: the district reported a capacity of just 3,278 seats—919 fewer than even the revised standard would suggest (again, see Chart 1).

This drastic reduction came at a time when two newly established charter schools were seeking space to operate within district facilities. While the timing may be coincidental, the data raises important questions about how and why these capacity figures changed so dramatically, and what impact those changes may have had on decisions around access and space for public and charter schools alike.

Chart 1: Seating Capacity 2000-2001 Worksheet

Table 1: 2010 Hoboken District Audit (J-18)