By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The district is looking to make capital improvement at “every” public school in Princeton, as officials fashion a facilities bond referendum to go before town voters early next year.
School board member Dafna Kendal, chairwoman of the board’s facilities committee, said Tuesday those improvements ran the gamut from a boiler to a big ticket item like an addition at Princeton High School.
“There are things that need to be done,” she said. “The board’s facilities committee and administrators are discussing making improvements at every school.”
She said officials have not determined, in dollars, how much the referendum will be. Decisions, though, will have to be made sooner rather than later, with the district wanting to have the ballot question in March.
At this stage, officials are weighing what projects to include, at a time when school enrollment is growing and projected to increase in the coming years. To inform their thinking, officials are due to hear next week from their architects.
One unknown is whether the district can acquire from Rider University the Westminster Choir College campus, a property on which the district has made an offer.
“But because that may or may not happen, we have to look at other possibilities as well to deal with the enrollment rise and the needs of kids,” Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said Tuesday. “So we’re exploring all of those options and we’ll able to talk more about that, I think, in the fall, to the public.”
The state Department of Education would have to review “tentative plans” for how the district would use the referendum, Cochrane said.
“So we have to present all the possibilities to the DOE for their consideration, and we’ll do that in September, “ he said.
Already, the school district has received the support of the political establishment in town. Mayor Liz Lempert has said she favors the district having a referendum and even backs acquiring the Westminster campus.
“But I think that the option of not having a referendum and not investing in the infrastructure would be a total disaster,” she said last week, “and I think the community recognizes that.”
