Lease proposed with Millstone
By: Joanne Degnan – Staff Writer
ROBBINSVILLE – The school district will likely wait until at least 2012 to ask voters again for funding for a new school. In the meantime it is considering asking for help from the Millstone district.
Faced with growing class sizes and the voters’ recent rejection of a $39.6 million school construction referendum, district officials here are considering busing an entire grade of elementary students to the Millstone district, which has a block of empty classrooms it may be willing to lease.
The Robbinsville Board of Education, agreeing Aug. 12 it has little chance of obtaining voter approval for a new school referendum within the next two years, discussed the Millstone option as part of long-term contingency plans for handling growing enrollment at the crowded elementary and middle schools.
"It would be our program, our curriculum and our teachers in their classrooms," Superintendent of Schools Steve Mayer told the school board. Mr. Mayer said Millstone’s incoming superintendent of schools, John Szabo, had informally pitched the idea to him in a recent phone conversation.
Dr. Szabo, who led the Robbinsville School District until his retirement in 2009, confirmed Monday there are five empty classrooms available at the K-2 Millstone Primary School, and that he spoke to Mr. Mayer about a possible lease.
"At the time I spoke to him last week I thought there would be about six, but I think we’re going to be using one of those now so it’s more like five classrooms," Dr. Szabo said.
Millstone also has two classrooms open at both its elementary school for grades 3-5 on Millstone Road and its middle school for grades 6-8 on Dawson Court, for a total of nine available classrooms, Dr. Szabo said.
Since the December 2012 referendum date that Robbinsville school board members informally agreed to at last week’s meeting means a new Robbinsville school cannot be built before 2014, Mr. Mayer asked for the board’s feedback on whether he should pursue talks with Millstone about a lease.
"This might be a worthwhile thing to explore instead of investing in more trailers," Mr. Mayer told the board.
Mr. Mayer said the K-3 Sharon School, which had 830 students enrolled as of July 15, will utilize five modular classrooms in September. More trailers will be needed in the future if additional classroom space isn’t found and enrollment increases substantially as district officials expect, Mr. Mayer said.
"If there’s no way we’re putting kids in Millstone, then we’re going to be building a trailer park at some point," Mr. Mayer said.
The annual cost to lease the trailers now at Sharon School is about $128,000 a year, Business Administrator Bob DeVita said Monday. However, the set-up cost alone to run plumbing, electric and heat to a new trailer when it is first installed is another $300,000 on top of that, he said.
Most board members at last week’s meeting agreed that Mr. Mayer should visit the Millstone Primary School and get more details about the possible lease.
"I just can’t see flushing $500,000 to $700,000 a year down the toilet for trailers," board member Sharon DeVito said at the meeting.
"I don’t want our kids going to school in another district, but I don’t want to be throwing our money way and cutting existing programs to pay for trailers either," said board member Carole Boyne.
Board members Thomas Halm and Matthew O’Grady pointed out that the financial expense of modular classroom trailers undermines the district’s ability to set aside funds that can be used as a down-payment for a new elementary school.
"The cost of continuing to put trailers out there submarines our entire budget," Mr. Halm said. "I would rather have some of our kids in another school temporarily and get rid of a half a million dollars in trailer fees."
School board member Flo Gange, however, said she was "adamantly opposed" to busing children to Millstone. She noted the Robbinsville community was "in an uproar" when fourth-graders at Sharon School had to be moved to the middle school several years ago because of overcrowding.
"Now you’re talking about moving a whole grade of kids 25 minutes away … to a community that is foreign to them," Ms. Gange said. "I’d rather see a trailer park (at Sharon School)."
"I don’t think a half-hour bus ride means the end of education for our kids," Mr. Mayer responded. He noted the children would be with Robbinsville students and teachers throughout the day except for their lunch period.
Other board members said adding more classroom trailers at Sharon School doesn’t address the problem of scheduling lunches and other activities in the building’s core facilities. Unless a second modular cafeteria is added in the years ahead, some children will need to be scheduled for a lunch period that begins shortly after they arrive in the morning in order for everyone to be fed.
Board member Rich Kasper asked whether a district located closer to Robbinsville, such as Hamilton, might have empty classroom space to lease. Mr. Mayer said Millstone was the only district he knew of with a block of empty classrooms available, but he would check with other districts.
When asked after the meeting about the cost of leasing the classrooms in Millstone, Mr. Mayer said his conversation with Dr. Szabo had only been preliminary. However, the cost of the lease and transportation would have to be less than trailers in order for Robbinsville to be interested, he said.
Mr. Mayer also said after the meeting that it was premature to discuss which elementary grade in Robbinsville might be bused to Millstone, should the Board of Education decide to move forward with a leasing plan.
Assistant Superintendent Kathleen Foster said that as of July 15 there are 2,732 students enrolled in Robbinsville schools – 830 K-3 students in Sharon; 1,107 students in grades 4-8 at Pond; and 795 students in grades 9-12 at Robbinsville High School.

