JERRY WOLKOWITZ Hazlet Middle School Principal Richard Sherman (l-r) and Assistant Principal Elaine Hayden show students the exterior of the school’s new media center Friday. The students (l-r) are Kaity Creasy, Monique Zuffanti and Brittany Lebretore, all 13 and entering eighth grade, and Pat Dean and Bryan Broderick, both 12 and entering seventh grade.
Renovated Union Ave. building to debut as
Hazlet Middle School
By ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
HAZLET — While students in the township’s schools are getting back to the books on Sept. 5, they’re also getting back to neighborhood schools. And a few new faces are there to guide them through it all.
The return to neighborhood schools has afforded many students the opportunity to stay in a K-6 setting with their siblings, be in close proximity to home and, for many, the opportunity to walk to school. The conversion this year was the result of decisions by an ad hoc committee formed two summers ago to study neighborhood schools, Superintendent Renae LaPrete said.
The district previously had three K-3 schools, two grades 4-5 schools and two grades 6-8 schools.
A referendum was approved by voters to perform classroom conversions in the necessary schools. When it came time to implement the concept, Business Administrator Bruce Quinn mapped out areas that would serve as guidelines for who would go to which school.
"Bruce Quinn gets credit for working out all the details and ironing out any minor kinks in the mapping. He did a tremendous job," LaPrete said.
There are six K-6 schools, one grades 7-8 middle school and one high school. The K-6 schools are Beers Street, Cove Road, Lillian Drive, Middle Road, Sycamore Drive and Raritan Valley. The newly named Hazlet Middle School is the former Union Avenue Middle School. This year’s eighth-grade class includes last year’s seventh-grade classes from the former Union Avenue and Beers Street middle schools. The Beers Street school is now a K-6 facility.
The Hazlet Middle School is known as the "Home of the Hurricanes," the result of a survey performed by students in March.
Things may look similar on the outside, but on the inside classrooms are changed around to accommodate the new grades in the K-6 facilities. For instance, in Beers Street where there once was a science lab, there very well may be a kindergarten classroom equipped with pint-sized bathrooms and storage space for crafts instead of Bunsen burners.
Concerning referendum progress, LaPrete said Hazlet Middle School’s gym floor has been poured and bleachers will be installed any day now, readying the gym for use not long after the new school year starts.
"It takes a little while for the floor to settle, so gym classes will be conducted outdoors. Since the weather is good, doing so shouldn’t have any negative impact at all on classes," LaPrete said.
The new media center at the middle school is set for use with new computers, and new science labs are completed.
LaPrete recently received some good news in the form of a $60,000 special legislative appropriation garnered by state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos and assemblymen Joseph Azzolina and Samuel Thompson (all R-13). The grant, which enables the schools to improve without taking anything from district funds, will be applied to refurbishing the high school track and revamping the courtyards at the high school and middle school. Beers Street School will also benefit with a new playground gym set.
When it comes to the pupils who will actually take advantage of the new classrooms and other amenities, LaPrete said most class sizes range "from the high teens to the low- to mid-20s."
And at the helm of those new classes are 27 new teachers replacing retirees and others.
On the administrative end, there will be many new faces. Michael Podhoretz will replace Richard Conte as special services director, and the new supervisor of math and technology will be Richard Stier.
There are also changes in a few principal positions.
At the middle school, Elaine Hayden was appointed assistant principal, and at Beers Street School, former Assistant Principal Marc Natanagara replaces Gerald Bagileo as principal.
Bagileo retired but is working as a consultant in the superintendent’s office helping out LaPrete who moved up from assistant superintendent to superintendent.
Also, Ann Panagakos was named the new assistant principal of Raritan High School.
LaPrete said that there will be a new language arts supervisor and a new director of curriculum, instruction and testing, as well.
LaPrete said she is working on bringing safety patrols back to the schools, a program which must be coordinated in concert with state police guidelines.
"We met with the state police recently and decided that by the end of the first marking period, we’d like to see the patrols started," she said.
"They’ll work well with the neighborhood schools because of the many students who will be walking to school. There are many other things the patrols will be helpful with, such as bus duty and hall monitoring," she added.