Board seeks state aid for construction

The Freehold Borough K-8 School District Board of Education is expected to submit two options to the state as it seeks to determine how much New Jersey will contribute to a multimillion dollar construction plan.

The architectural firm of Fraytak, Veisz, Hopkins, Duthie developed multiple construction options that board members discussed earlier this month.

The board will meet on March 24 and may narrow the construction options to two plans, both of which will be submitted to state education officials, according to district administrators.

Freehold Borough administrators will then wait to hear how much of the tab the state will pick up for renovations, upgrades and additions to the Freehold Learning Center elementary school, the Park Avenue Elementary School and the Freehold Intermediate School.

A referendum could be placed before voters on Sept. 30. The two options under serious consideration check in at a cost of $21.39 million and $32.72 million.

District administrators said the work is needed to accommodate an increasing enrollment.

Superintendent of Schools Rocco Tomazic said the district’s enrollment is ahead of projections from a demographer. Tomazic said the enrollment was 1,526 pupils on Sept. 21, 2012; 1,547 pupils on June 24, 2013; 1,570 pupils on Sept. 20, 2013; and 1,588 pupils on Feb. 12, 2014.

To compensate for a lack of space, district administrators have been renting four classrooms at the West Freehold Elementary School, Freehold Township, for several years and busing Freehold Borough kindergarten children to that facility.

Tomazic said plans for the 2014-15 school year call for Freehold Borough to also rent two classrooms at the Marshall W. Errickson School, Freehold Township, and to bus kindergarten pupils to that building as well.

— Clare Marie Celano