New upper elementary school set to open in North Hanover
Stephanie Prokop Staff Writer
NORTH HANOVER In December 1907 the original Jacobstown School opened with indoor plumbing, which at the time was considered state of the art.
A hundred years later and with many added amenities, the North Hanover Upper Elementary School is getting ready to officially open its doors, which will be directly behind part of the original Jacobstown School building.
The oldest part of the Jacobstown School is attached to the modern-day Clarence B. Lamb school.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new upper elementary school was scheduled for Wednesday evening, after the Register-News deadline, and the 125,000-square-foot, $33 million building off Schoolhouse Road will open for the 300-member student body on Sept. 6.
North Hanover Superintendent Richard Carson said that the school board was able to finance the building through money it receives from the federal government, because a portion of McGuire Air Force Base is located within the township. The new building will house grades five and six, in the K-6 district.
The school was supposed to open in September 2006 but construction was delayed due to lawsuits filed by the district against general contractor, Ernest Bock and Sons of Philadelphia, and roofing company Jersey Coast Construction Inc.
Dr. Carson said Tuesday said he could not comment on the suit because it was still in litigation.
Even though the school was finally ready to open by late last fall, the decision was made to wait until September 2007 to ensure minimal disruption to learning.
According to Dr. Carson, the school is designed for 500 students, which allows the school “room to grow,” throughout the coming years.
Students in grades five and six were previously housed at the Challenger Elementary School, and the Clara Barton School in Bordentown City. The C. B. Lamb Elementary School will now house grades one through four, and the district will turn the Challenger Elementary School on McGuire Air Force Base over to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Dr. Carson added that the base holds adult continuing education programs, and that the Challenger School would be an ideal facility for those services.
When walking into the main entryway of the new school, visitors to the school are greeted with a spacious interior, with multiple windows that maximize the use of natural light, even in interior classrooms.
The cafeteria makes the most of a round space by placing the kitchen in the center, and three overhead wall-mounted flat screens will be useful for when teachers attend in-service presentations, said Dr. Carson.
The board offices, which used to be separate from the elementary schools, are now located within the school.
A main office facility houses includes a conference room, a PTA meeting room, a faculty lunch room, in addition to a faculty planning session room with two computers and private phone room so “teachers can have privacy when they have to call parents,” said Dr. Carson.
Large flat-screen televisions are wall-mounted and appear throughout the building, including one in every classroom.
The televisions feature a media retrieval archive, which is run through the video-on-demand server SAFARI Montage, said Dr. Carson. Teachers will have access to the History Channel, National Geographic, U.S. News and World Reports, and other educational programs, he said.
The Montage program allows them to “cut and paste” sections of documentaries pertaining to lesson plans and show it to the class.
In addition to the flat-screen televisions, computers are prominent around the upper elementary school, with multiple lab-style configurations set up in the art room, the library and the music room.
Classrooms were designed in “pods,” with each section devoted to a specific subject.
A larger gym and upgraded art room also allow students to spend more time in those respective programs.
”We can now have students take physical education four times a week, as opposed to one,” said Dr. Carson.
Art classes will also be bumped up to nine full weeks of instruction, compared to one day a week for 36 weeks.
The auditorium and gymnasium also feature a separate entrance from that of the academic part of the building, enabling after-school events to be held while the rest of the school can be securely locked.
The 800-plus seat auditorium has already attracted the neighboring high school’s interest for dramatic productions.
”Northern Burlington Regional High School had said that they would like to hold their spring musical in our facility,” said Dr. Carson.
The architectural and engineering corporation, VITETTA, of Marlton, has received accolades for the design of the building, and school officials were expected to be presented with those awards at the ceremony.
The ceremony was set to include a slideshow of pictures that follows the five-year history of the building from its inception to how it appears today.

