WW-P school board seeks interim grade plan

‘We don’t like any of the long-term plans we have seen, but know we have to open school in 2002.’

By: Gwen Runkle
   The West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional Board of Education agreed Tuesday that whatever elementary grade configuration is implemented in 2002 will serve only as an interim solution.
   For the past several months, the school board has been debating how to best configure district elementary schools over the long term to accommodate the district’s expected population boom of nearly 2,000 students in the next several years.
   "No matter what the last piece of the puzzle is, the board needs to make a decision on where it’s going for 2002, because planning for 2002 has to start soon," said Board President Cheryl Larrier-Jemmont at the board’s Tuesday night meeting.
   "We don’t like any of the long-term plans we have seen, but know we have to open school in 2002," said board member Stan Katz. "Any plan at this stage is an interim plan, we just need to determine what interim plan to implement for 2002."
   There are two such plans on the table right now:
   

  • the same K-3/4-5 plan, preferred by the administration, that has been considered since October when the school board narrowly endorsed Superintendent John Fitzsimons’ recommendation to keep the district’s current K-3/4-5 elementary grade configuration, and

   

  • an alternate plan developed by board member Hemant Marathe.

   The K-3/4-5 plan calls for the Village School to become a second fourth- and fifth-grade school with the opening of the new Town Center Elementary School in 2002. The Town Center school and the other three elementary schools, Dutch Neck School, Maurice Hawk School and the J.V.B. Wicoff School, would remain K-3.
   The school board has been unable to come to an agreement on how to best house students in the K-3/4-5 configuration after the 2004-2005 school year, when there is predicted to be an overflow of third-grade students and extra space opens up at the grades 4-5 Upper Elementary School.
   "Up until then, redistricting works," said Board Member Dee Dee Dodson. "The question has always been what happens then, how do we fill the extra seats. All of our questions have been raised because of that falling apart."
   Mr. Marathe hopes his interim plan will solve this problem.
   His plan calls for the Maurice Hawk School, Dutch Neck School, J.V.B. Wicoff School, Village School and Town Center Elementary to become K-4 schools in 2002. All fifth-grade students would attend the Upper Elementary School, along with with approximately eight classes of fourth-graders who would be redistricted to Upper Elementary School under a K-5 configuration.
   While he would prefer that the board choose to move into a K-5 configuration after the 2002-2003 school year, Mr. Marathe said his plan allows the board to move into either a K-5 or a K-3/4-5 system with minimum disruption to students and at minimal cost.
   "If the board chooses to implement K-5, no student will be moved more than once and no student will be at a school less than two years. If the board chooses to go back to the K-3/4-5 plan, the only students who move twice are those who attend Town Center Elementary as fourth-graders," according to Mr. Marathe’s plan.
   Mr. Marathe also said his interim plan would be cost-effective because there would be no need to duplicate the music program by constructing a $500,000 music room, and gifted and talented math program at the Village School for fifth-grade students.
   "The cost incurred would be to restart the music program in the individual elementary schools, as it was three years ago, and to update the library materials for fourth-graders," his plan states.
   Continued discussion of elementary grade configuration is expected to take place in October, possibly at a special meeting specifically devoted to the topic, Vice President Linda Geevers said.