New h.s. gets board’s support

Monroe will seek

to hold September referendum

By lynn k. barra

Staff Writer

Two recent studies have prompted the Monroe Board of Education to unanimously approve an ad hoc committee’s recommendation to build a new high school.

If a new high school is built, the current high school on Perrineville Road would likely be reconfigured to accommodate grades six through eight. Plans on reconfiguring the middle school and the district’s elementary schools to include other grade levels are yet to be determined by the board, Board of Education President Joseph Homoki said.

The ad hoc committee was formed a month after Richard Grip, vice president of Statistical Forecasting Inc., presented his five-year enrollment projections to the board at a November meeting, according to Homoki. The committee included resident Roy Deboer, a professional planner who offered to review Grip’s findings free of charge, Homoki said.

Deboer agreed with most of Grip’s findings and favored building a new high school, a concept that the board has been considering for some time.

"Dr. Grip was commissioned by the board to perform a population study," Homoki said. "After we heard his report, we established an ad hoc committee. We happened to be lucky we appointed a member (Deboer) who had expertise in anticipating growth. He examined Grip’s report and modified it slightly."

Deboer looked slightly beyond the five-year projections in Grip’s report, Homoki said. Both reports reflected a future increase in the growth of the township’s student population, particularly at the high school, which both reports projected will meet or exceed its current 1,200-student capacity during the next few years, according to Homoki.

"The bottom line is the high school," Homoki said, adding that the location for the possible new high school and its total cost are yet to be been determined by the board. Though he stressed that the cost is still unknown, he said that other high schools built recently have cost in the vicinity of $70 million.

"The high school will be out of room within the next two to three years. We’re almost at capacity now," he said.

Officials will seek to ask voters permission to build a high school, which would accommodate 1,700 to 1,800 students, during a bond referendum in September, Homoki said.

A strategic planning meeting was to be held at the high school last night to discuss in more detail the long-range planning goals for the entire school district, which currently consists of one high school; the Applegarth School for grades seven and eight; the Woodland School for grades four, five and six; the Brookside School for grades three through six; and Barclay Brook, for kindergarten through second grade.

The new Mill Lake School, which was scheduled to open in January, will open next month, Homoki said. Approximately $24,000 in damage was caused by a group of juveniles in October. Three juveniles were charged with criminal mischief and burglary. Police sought full restitution for the cost of the damage from the parents of the three youths.

Most of the current Mill Lake School — which Homoki said was poorly constructed when it was built approximately 25 years ago — will be demolished. A parking lot and a road for school buses will replace the school. Homoki said that part of the new addition to the school, located toward the back of the building, may be saved, but the board is yet to decide what, if any part of the elementary school, might withstand the wrecking ball.

Board members estimate that the new high school could be built sometime in 2006. The location of the new school would be determined after the board acquires land.

MRM Architecture of North Brunswick would design the new high school, Homoki said.