Ken Hansen, Hopewell Township
As a member of the Referendum Committee that submitted its report to the school board back in December, I feel compelled to respond to the various comments published in a recent edition of the Hopewell Valley News. Let me be clear, while I was a member of the Referendum Committee, I am in no way speaking for anyone other than myself.
First, a little history — the committee was created by the board to conduct research for a future referendum, which was to focus on “green” initiatives. Our charge was to “advise the board of projects that would be included in the referendum with a brief rationale for each” and “to estimate the cost of each project and the total cost for the referendum.” That is what we were asked to do, and that is exactly what we did.
The committee met with various administration members around the district, including every school building principal in district, and gathered the information provided. We then met and reviewed the requests and asked our committee members from Design Ideas Group to create cost estimates based on the thinnest of specifications and to base their estimates on the reality that construction would likely span several years for some of the projects considered.
When the committee met at the end of 2008 to assemble our final report, there was much discussion regarding the futility of recommending any project given our current economic reality, but a few persuasive members reminded us that our task was to inventory and prioritize the needs of the district as presented to us. It was not to draft a referendum for inclusion on the spring school election – that is the responsibility of the school board.
In our final report, in the section entitled “II. Process,” we wrote: “We recognize that the board may exercise several options regarding this list, including full or partial deferral of the projects.” Under section “IV. Prioritized List,” we provided just that, a prioritized list – we excluded nothing the administrators requested, and added nothing to the requests they provided, such decisions were viewed as being “above our pay grade,” Then, in the cryptically entitled final section “VI. Conclusion,” we wrote: “The committee is unanimous in its conviction that the Bear Tavern Elementary School be updated, that provisions be made for the Department of Education pre-school mandate and that Central High School science room needs be addressed in the proposed referendum.” In short, we recommended permanent classrooms to displace trailers and accommodate full day Pre-K and K for all at Bear Tavern, as well as three additional science classrooms at CHS to accommodate current needs.
As for the oft repeated $70M in new construction proposed, that number includes every project requested, not those few we did recommend to the board.
Effective management of any enterprise requires that you periodically review the needs of your organization and determine if any action need be taken – this is exactly what the school board and the Referendum Committee did.
