Monmouth Junction celebrates addition

Cafeteria is added to school

By: Bill Greenwood
   Upon entering, the cafeteria at Monmouth Junction school appears normal. Children eat and talk. The school’s food staff dishes out meals to those standing in line. A general sense of excitement permeates the air as the children enjoy a hard-earned break from their studies.
   However, this cafeteria is different from many others like it. It’s part of a new addition to the school completed in time for the current school year that also added new art and music rooms, a redesigned library and splits one large, formerly open-space classroom into 12 separate rooms with walls. The changes made were part of the second phase of a $46.4 million referendum that was passed in December 2003 to help the district adjust to increasing enrollment. The first phase, completed in September 2005, included the renovation to Brunswick Acres and Green Brook schools. Construction for the second phase began in October 2005. The district will pay off the referendum by the year 2028.
   The school will be celebrating the completion of the addition at its rededication ceremony at 2 p.m. Sunday. Those wishing to attend should park at the South Brunswick High School and take a shuttle, running every 10 to 15 minutes, to Monmouth Junction.
   "This is a great opportunity to celebrate the joy of Monmouth Junction," Principal Maribeth Edmunds said. "This is a wonderful school."
   She said the festivities would include an art gallery with entries from every one of the school’s students, a vocal performance by the students, speeches, tours of the building and a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
   The school was originally established in 1950, at which point it consisted of only eight classrooms, a boys’ and girls’ room, an office and a nurse’s office. In 1974, an addition was built that added the open-space classroom, which was the trend in the 1970s.
   Those who work in the new rooms said the new accommodations are much better than those previously in place.
   Jill Ward, the school’s art teacher, said the new art room — which is painted in the addition’s orange, blue and green color scheme and loaded with artwork of all shapes and sizes — was "beautiful," with much more space than the previous room.
   "The students love the space," she said. "It’s just a big difference from last year. It feels like being in a real art studio."
   Ms. Ward is helping her students create artwork that will be displayed in the new cafeteria during the rededication ceremony. Every student will be submitting a piece, she said, and the style varies according to grade. For example, the first-graders are doing portraits of themselves with their teachers, and the third-graders are drawing their own renditions of the school’s mascot: the jaguar.
   Ms. Ward herself also has worked on a jaguar painting. Together with other teachers in the school, she has constructed two 5-foot jaguar posters that will be used to hold up the ribbon during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
   "The nice thing about those is that it’s our mascot, so we’re just going to keep them," said fifth-grade teacher Deborah Buonobore, who helped make the posters and served on the rededication committee. "We’ll use them for every time we have an assembly or for graduation, so it’s kind of a nice payoff."
   Ms. Buonobore, who now teaches in a traditional walled classroom instead of the open area she had last year, said she felt a bit claustrophobic when she first started teaching this year, but has grown to like it.
   "I liked that open space," she said. "I didn’t think I was going to like this, but I do like it. It’s nice now that my kids can do an activity and be a little loud within reason, but we’re not disturbing another class."
   Throughout the rededication ceremony, fifth-graders will be stationed throughout the addition to guide parents as they tour the area, Ms. Buonobore said. She added that parents used to the old open-space setup sometimes get lost in the new hallway.
   "My class is physically in the same place, but you can’t walk through from the hallway," she said. "So, we’ll have kids posted to kind of show (that) this is where our new class is (and) this is our new art room."
   Ms. Edmunds said she would like to see 300 to 400 people attend the event, including community members and former students.
   "I think people take pride in the building, and this is an opportunity to be proud all over again," she said. "I think it’s going to be a great day."