Monroe enrollment projections increase
School district may hold referendum to add space at new high school
BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

MONROE — Despite increased projections for student enrollment at the high school level, officials are confident that a proposed new building will be sufficient.

Superintendent of Schools Ralph Ferrie recently presented the results of demographic studies conducted in June, and while those numbers are high, Ferrie does not believe they will overwhelm the district’s facilities.

“You have to remember, capacity and functional capacity are two different things,” Ferrie said.

The current high school building has a capacity of 1,200 students, but there are 1,400 students in the school this year, he said.

The new building, which would be constructed by 2011, would have a capacity of 1,800, but the studies project there will be more than 2,000 high school students in the district by that time.

“So you can do things in terms of schedule, where you can handle it,” Ferrie said. “You can handle an extra couple hundred kids. So that’s what we’re booking on, in terms of the projected size of the new high school.”

The proposed building would be constructed on a 35-acre piece of Thompson Park, across School House Road from the current high school. The current high school would become a middle school. Because the park land was acquired using state funds, the state Green Acres program must sign off on the land swap. The township has offered a nearby 77-acre tract in exchange for the 35 acres.

Ferrie said the new high school building will likely require additional classroom space, but no trailers and no more additions to its core facilities.

There are currently 31 trailers, or portable classrooms, being used at district schools.

“But we’ve made every effort to build the high school so that the core facilities can handle significantly more kids,” he said, referring to the new projections.

Core facilities include a gymnasium, cafeteria and media center.

Ferrie said officials are not certain as to when the additional classroom space would be needed, but they will continue to monitor district enrollment up to the projected opening date of the new high school.

There is a possibility, he added, that the new building would be constructed with the additional classrooms, but another referendum would be required if officials want to expand upon the plans. Ferrie said officials hope to have the situation resolved soon, since December, January and March are the three months when the state permits referendums to be held.

Regardless of which month officials would hold the referendum, the new building would not be open before 2011, Ferrie said.

“So we have to resolve it by March,” he said.

One important factor, Ferrie said, is the cost involved, and how much the district can afford to construct by that date.

“We have the architects and the construction management people looking at the building and trying to do some value engineering and see what we can do in terms of cost,” he said.

Ferrie said there will likely be more studies conducted in the near future, and the numbers could change.

Ferrie stressed that the estimates are just that — projections — and he said officials will work to ensure that the new facilities provide enough room for every high school student in the district.

But before any of that can be settled, there must be a ruling on the land diversion, he noted.

“We need to let the land-exchange issue resolve itself out and then determine a proper plan of action, in terms of the building itself, and how we’re going to get it built for the amount of money we have, and what other kinds of things we can do to get this high school built,” Ferrie said.

Projections show that enrollment for the district as a whole will be 4,756 by the end of this year, but that will jump to 5,203 for the next school year. By 2009-10, enrollment will be 6,538, according to the estimates.

High school enrollment is expected to surpass 1,600 students over the next school years, and would see a spike by 2009-10, when 2,051 students are projected.