By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton school district continued this week to highlight the value of having Cranbury students attend Princeton High School, a 26-year-old relationship that has come under question at a time when Princeton officials are consider an addition to the overcrowded high school.
The district posted a fact sheet, on its website, outlining how many Cranbury students had attended in the past school year, 280, and the amount in tuition, $4.8 million, that the Middlesex County town had paid Princeton, among other details. Princeton said Cranbury tuition, for the current school year, “is expected to be the second largest source of revenue for the district’s operating budget.”
But the district is in the midst of planning a referendum that might include a three-story addition at the high school, which already is 200 students above capacity at a total enrollment of 1,620. With that enrollment figure projected to rise, Princeton is eyeing an addition as part of a larger ballot question, expected to go before voters in September 2018.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, board President Patrick Sullivan said officials realize that, “in a referendum year, questions will arise as to what is the financial contribution of Cranbury and would there be a simple way to solve some of our expansion issues through changing, amending that relationship.”
“And the short answer is, no there’s not any simple way or fruitful way to do that,” Sullivan said.
“The Cranbury students are all Princeton students,” he said in calling it important from a “moral” and “social” standpoint “to continue this relationship.” “Cranbury people are our friends, our family and our colleagues. And we welcome them.”
He added, “there is no intention to do anything” differently.
Fellow board member Justin Doran said “families and students from Cranbury are valued and vibrant contributors to the PHS academic, athletic and artistic community.”
“In addition to that,” he continued, “they are our friends.”
In terms of Cranbury contributing financially to the referendum cost, the Princeton fact sheet said a public school cannot “contribute to the capital improvements of another school,” the document read in part. “However, the interest due on capital bonds from a referendum is included in the calculation of tuition.”
For the past school year, the tuition for Cranbury was $17,191 per pupil.
“And so they are paying their fair share,” Sullivan said.
Cranbury representative Evelyn Spann had left the regular public meeting before it started.
