Monmouth Beach Schools Superintendent Brian Farrell speaks to parents about the relocation of classes to neighboring towns during an informational meeting at Wolf Hill Elementary School in Oceanport on Nov. 9. NICOLE ANTONUCCI Neighboring school districts opened their doors to children from Monmouth Beach this week after the borough’s only school sustained significant flood damage during the Oct. 29 superstorm.
Approximately 300 students from the K- 8 school will attend schools in the Shore Regional High School, West Long Branch and Oceanport school districts until the Monmouth Beach School can be repaired.
“Oceanport, West Long Branch and Shore Regional have opened their arms to us and really have gone so much above and beyond to make our students and our teachers feel comfortable and accepted,” Monmouth Beach School District Superintendent Brian Farrell said at a special parent information meeting at Wolf Hill Elementary School in Oceanport on Nov. 9.
Monmouth Beach was significantly affected when Sandy made landfall on Oct. 29, causing record-high tidal surge, felled trees and power outages.
According to Farrell, the Monmouth Beach Elementary School, located on Hastings Place, a block from the Manahassett Creek, took on approximately 3 feet of water, damaging everything in the building except for one technology lab and two kindergarten classrooms.
Since Nov. 1, a mitigation and restoration company has been at work cleaning up the building, but it could be several months before students will be allowed to go back to the school, he said.
“To clean the building is between four and six weeks,” Farrell said, adding that the deciding factor will be the condition of the electrical and heating systems.
“We can have a spotless district, but if we don’t have a boiler, we have no heat, we can’t go to school. Those evaluations have not been done yet. Depending on the results of those, we can stay on track and hopefully get in by the new year, but if they are shot, then that would change the entire timeline.” In the meantime, the plan is to have students from pre-K through kindergarten attend Wolf Hill Elementary School, students in grades 1-4 attend the Betty McElmon and Frank Antonides elementary schools, and students in grades 5-8 attend Shore Regional High School, all in West Long Branch.
The school day for the Monmouth Beach students will run from 9 a.m. to 1:50 p.m. to stagger the arrival and departure times of students.
Class periods for these students will be 32 minutes, for a total school day of four hours and 50 minutes, and will focus on the core-curriculum subjects of language arts, math, social studies and science.
Students will also take one special-area class such as music, art or Spanish.
According to officials from each school district who attended the meeting, arrangements have been made for the Monmouth Beach students to have their own classrooms.
James J. Erhardt, principal of Betty McElmon Elementary School, special education classes have been consolidated and other classes will be rotated.
“We are going to shift a few things around so it doesn’t impact the instruction in West Long Branch and it provides the best opportunity for the best instruction space for Monmouth Beach,” Erhardt said.
“We work as a region and we want to help them the best we can. It’s going to be an exciting opportunity to bring everyone together.”
West Long Branch Superintendent Herbert Massa said that space is not an issue because there are approximately 600 students in both buildings, down from 1,000.
“They are our neighbors and they go to the regional districts and there is no sense in having them on a different schedule as us,” Massa said.
“If anything, this will be good because the two schools will work together and the teachers will work together.”
Oceanport Superintendent Andrew Orefice said that the district also has the classroom space to take on the additional students so the arrangement was a “nobrainer.”
“Their kids are our kids,” he said.
Farrell added that the Monmouth Beach Board of Education is in the process of determining how the district will make up the nine school days lost following the storm.
He said that the board will consider which holidays will be affected, whether cutting spring break or taking away the days off for Presidents Day and Memorial Day.
Extending the last day of school, which is currently June 21, is also a limited option since teacher contracts do not permit teachers to work beyond June 30.
The three dedicated snow days in the school year will not be considered since winter has not yet arrived.
“I have to talk to the board. There are only a certain amount of options, so depending on what they want to do and what days they want to take away, that is what we have to discuss,” he said.
“There is a good chance that a bunch of these days will be gone.”