The Board of Education, at a regularly scheduled
March 13th
meeting, voted to send the State
the newly proposed $20+ million school
bond referendum application.
March 14th — The Board meeting was held at Deerfield School. There was a highly
creative presentation of the children's artwork before the Board conducted
old and new business.
After that, here are the most salient points from the
meeting.
Except for Debra Camitta, who was absent, the other eight Board of
Education members voted to approve the resolution to send the State the newly
proposed
$20+ School Bond Referendum application. The Board expects this referendum
to be approved by the State and ready for residents to vote on it in September.
There
were several speeches from the Board Members about why they were voting for
this proposed referendum and several members of the audience spoke out
saying it was not enough to do the job regardless of the new demographics.
Three
of the seven candidates, who will be running for new board seats to be decided
at an April 18th election, spoke out during the session that
was
not
heavily attended.
The two points that WeLoveMillburn.com group would like
to point out at this time is that the town residents did defeat, as we all
know, the
$40+
bond
referendum resulting in this new one being drafted.
But that said,
since the Board of Education has issued new demographics at several recent
meetings and the plans are still going through changes,
WeLoveMillburn.com
does not have a formal point of view on the new bond referendum at
this time.
Also, for some time now, WeLoveMIllburn.com had urged the
Board to contract a consulting architect. Last night the Board voted to enter
into a agreement
with an outside independent advisory project manager (they called
it a 'commissioning agent') to provide oversight and owner's representation
during the pre-construction
phase regarding the plans and specs before they go to the State
of New Jersey. The Board members agreed to the services but with a capped
fee.
The Feb. 6th Special Board of Education meeting
had standing room only attendance.
Here are a few notes from that Special Meeting. Dr. Brodow said the purpose
of the special meeting was to allow residents to ask question of the architect
and also of the Board of Education.
The architect did a short presentation of the newly proposed $21 million plan
before Ms. Frank and Dr. Brodow opened up the session to the public for questions.
The meeting started at 7:30 and ended around 10:00pm.
In response to one question regarding completion date for construction, the
architect said September 2009 assuming September 2006 referendum. The architect
said construction was estimated to take 20 months. This appeared to mean that
there is no rush for a April referendum and the Board of Education can do its
homework.
Regarding demographics, Dr. Brodow admitted that kindergarten enrollment merited
further study as to how it will impact projections. He said he would hire someone
to do something akin to the Department of Education's suggested projections.
Ms. Ganella from The Millburn Middle School appeared to be saying publicly
for the first time that crowding at Middle School was not in classrooms, even
though she previously said that the school is overcrowded now.
Dr. Brodow stated that 150 square feet per pupil is state guideline for new
construction. The High School meets that now. The Middle School is at 137,
and after construction with 100 more students will be at 139. He did not cite
a square foot figure for existing space.
Dr. Brodow agreed to work with the architect to come up with cost figures
for expanding two of the elementary schools so as to learn cost of returning
sixth grade to elementary schools. In response to a question regarding why
he concluded that returning sixth grade was educationally inadequate, he said
it's opinion, and that there was no academic literature or studies on this
one way or the other. He did not answer the question as to how other districts
had k-6 schools. He also did not disagree that there is no violation of "no
child left behind."
Ms. Frank said that Board of Education was getting an appraisal of Oakey Tract.
The architect went through how he came up with cost estimates. He used something
like $240 per square foot for new construction, and some other figure for site
improvements.
It appeared that there were members of the audience or residents who wanted
more items added to the new plan. On the other hand half of the room still
felt that since there is time until a bond needs to voted on a holistic district
wide study should be done on educational needs and possible solutions.
From previous WeLoveMillburn article
about notification of this special meeting.
Superintendent of Millburn Township schools calls for a special meeting Monday night Feb. 6th at 7:30pm to sell his new bond program.
In addition to architect Tom Kosten, Dr. Brodow has asked the principals and other administration officials to be present at the meeting.
Last week Dr Brodow informed the school PTO Presidents that he feels they are at a critical juncture and they want to do the right thing. He listed off things he wants to do before the town votes again on a new school bond referendum.
Dr. Brodow wants to do an additional demographic study since 2006-07 kindergarten enrollment appear to be lower than projected, review state standards for square feet per student, if they decide to move ahead hire a oversight group to work with the architect, review class sizes, review operational costs and even look into the Oakey Tract that the Board of Education has owned for nearly half a century.
Dr. Brodow was quoted as saying: "As you know, it is most important that the process we use to reach a consensus on a new plan must be thorough, comprehensive and transparent."
WeLoveMillburn.com will keep residents up-to-date on the news regarding the proposed new school bond referendum.
