ROBBINSVILLE: Residents to cast votes on classroom referendum

Polls open Tuesday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
   ROBBINVILLE — Township voters will go to the polls next week to decide whether to approve bonding for $18.9 million worth of school projects, including the addition of 29 classrooms at two overcrowded schools.
   Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 11.
   If approved, the school district will be able to build a two-story addition containing 24 classrooms onto Sharon Elementary School and add five classrooms to Pond Road Middle School by converting space in its library.
   The referendum also would pay for facility upgrades, including expanded cafeterias at both schools, a gymnasium for the new wing at Sharon and new windows, ceilings, lighting, floors and air conditioning for the original part of the school that is 54 years old.
   The cost to taxpayers, if the referendum passes, would be $48 per $100,000 in assessed valuation. This means a home assessed at $400,000 would pay $192 more a year in school taxes.
   The price tag is about half the cost of the defeated 2010 school referendum that would have spent $39.6 million to build a new standalone K-5 elementary school and make improvements at other school buildings.
   School district officials hope the new plan to expand two existing schools, instead of build a new one, will be more palatable to voters.
   There are about 2,900 students in the Robbinsville School District. The expansions would eliminate overcrowding at the two K-8 buildings that are now 334 students over capacity and help accommodate expected enrollment growth of 335 additional students in the next few years from housing projects that have township approvals, but are not yet completed.
   If approved, the $18.9 million referendum would enable the district to make Sharon School a K-4 building instead of its current K-3 configuration. By moving the fourth-graders back to the elementary school, Pond Road Middle School then would become a grade five-to-eight school instead of its current grade four-to-eight configuration.
   The 24 new classrooms at Sharon also would eliminate the need to keep using the five leased modular classrooms on the lawn at Sharon and keep the district’s10 kindergarten classes under one roof at Sharon. Currently, three kindergarten classes are housed at the 103-year-old Windsor School across town because of the space constraints at Sharon. The district intends to try to sell the Windsor School property to help pay down the debt service associated with the expansion referendum.
   For more information about the referendum or to find out your polling location, go to the school district’s website — www.robbinsville.k12.nj.us.