By alison granito
Staff Writer
MILLSTONE — In one of the fastest-growing residential communities in Monmouth County, an expanding population has brought the township’s school system to critical mass.
According to Assistant Superintendent of Schools Mary Ann Donahue, overcrowding is getting so bad that the district is using every conceivable foot of space for student instruction at both the middle school and the elementary school.
"There really is no other place to go. The next step would be to start taking away the specialty rooms like the computer room or the art room," she said. She noted that both schools had teachers working from mobile carts.
"They have no room of their own. They go from class to class," she said.
Donahue said that the district has already taken some steps to free up more instructional space, such as dividing up the music room at the elementary school for small-group instruction, and using rooms that were formerly dedicated to special education as classrooms.
According to Donahue, enrollment figures at the middle school jumped from 692 to 755 this year, while the population at the elementary school has risen from 874 students last year to 883 students this year.
Long-term projections for the district through 2005 show that the district will be unable to house several hundred students. State standards require a minimum number of square feet per student.
To combat the space crunch, school officials have said they intend to hold a voter referendum in March to request funds to purchase a parcel of property and to pay for the construction of a new middle school. Looking down the road, officials have also said that they would like the property to be more than 100 acres, which would be large enough to support both the middle school and a potential high school. In addition to the new students in township schools this year, Donahue said that 22 new teachers, as well as several new administrators will greet the student body when the doors open today.
On the academic front, Donahue said the major change in the elementary school will be using the specially trained physical education teachers, as opposed to regular classroom teachers, for health education. Also, she said that grades K-4 will be participating in a pilot program on guided reading.
At the middle school, Donahue said that district will continue with the honors language arts class at the eighth-grade level.