Planners want the see the proposal include additional parking for the Lawrence High School and middle school campus, a more attractive entrance for LHS and they’d like the district to address potential drainage problems.
By: Lea Kahn
Provide more parking in the parking lot between Lawrence Middle School and Lawrence High School. Don’t create drainage problems for neighbors. And, while you are about it, design a more attractive entrance for Lawrence High School.
Those were some of the comments passed on to school district officials by the Planning Board Monday night as it reviewed concept plans for expansions to the high school, the middle school and two elementary schools.
Assistant Schools Superintendent Bruce McGraw and architect Larry Uher of the Spiezle Architectural Group outlined the proposed expansions in a courtesy review before the Planning Board. The Planning Board has no authority to approve or deny the project.
School district officials want to expand the present 177,000-square-foot Lawrence High School by 68,000 square feet to provide for more fine arts and science classrooms, Dr. McGraw said. When the high school was built in the 1960s, art was an elective. Today, it is a required course, he said.
The high school band has 100 student musicians, but there is room for only 35 students to practice at a time, he said. Science is taught in "run of the mill" classrooms not in rooms designed for that curriculum, he said.
A new cafeteria would be included in an addition that would span the front of the high school, Dr. McGraw said. Also, it would provide office space for the assistant principals, the school resource officer and the attendance and security officer. The school store also would be located in the addition.
The plans also call for expanding the 73,000-square-foot Lawrence Middle School by 76,500 square feet, to accommodate sixth-graders who would be moved over from the Lawrence Intermediate School, Dr. McGraw said. Relocating the sixth-graders would relieve overcrowding at LIS, he said.
A two-story wing would be built that would house the seventh- and eighth-graders, he said. The existing classrooms on the first floor of the existing building would be earmarked for sixth-graders.
Another gymnasium would be added in front of the existing gymnasium and a second kitchen and cafeteria would be built next to the existing ones. The expansion plans call for more art, music and science classrooms.
The entrances to the middle school and the high school would face each other, across the existing parking lot between the two schools on Princeton Pike, Dr. McGraw said.
Two of the four elementary schools the 43,000-square-foot Lawrenceville Elementary School and the 38,500-square-foot Ben Franklin Elementary School would be expanded, Mr. Uher, the architect, told the Planning Board. There is no room to expand the Slackwood or Eldridge Park elementary schools.
The Lawrenceville Elementary School expansion calls for building a 36,500-square-foot addition on the Phillips Avenue side. The main entrance to the school would be relocated to the opposite side of the building, near the playground.
The two-story wing would contain several regular classrooms, plus two music classrooms and two art classrooms. A new gym would be included.
At the Ben Franklin Elementary School, the 43,600-square-foot addition would be constructed at the rear of the building, Dr. McGraw said. There would be two art classrooms and two music classrooms, plus seven regular classrooms.
The main office would be redesigned so that staffers can see who is entering the building, he said. Now the staffers’ view of visitors is blocked by a brick wall.
Dr. McGraw said the elementary school expansions would help the district to achieve its goal of an average class size of 15 students in grades K-3. This would likely mean redistricting, or revising the boundaries of the sending areas for each elementary school, he said.
Municipal Manager William Guhl, who sits on the Planning Board, said the current front entrance to the high school is not attractive. The renovation could be an opportunity to draw a more attractive entrance to the high school, he said.
Mr. Guhl and Planning Board Chairman Tom Wilfrid pointed out that more parking spaces would be needed. The middle school would be expanded, which means more teachers would be parking in the lot, they said.
Municipal Engineer Christopher Budzinski said he was concerned about drainage issues that would result from the high school and middle school expansions. The school board cannot create a drainage problem in that neighborhood, he said. One possibility would be to design an underground detention basin, he added.
Mr. Uher, the architect, assured the Planning Board that the plans have not been finalized. He added that he did not know how many parking spaces would be included in the parking lot between the middle school and the high school.
School board officials said they will take the comments under advisement.