By:Brian Shappell
Princeton High School Principal John Kazmark outlined problems of enrollment growth and necessary building expansion in a presentation to the Cranbury school board Tuesday.
Cranbury sends about 150 of its students to the Princeton district on a tuition basis.
Dr. Kazmark’s report focused on areas where improvement is needed, as opposed to focusing on the high school’s advanced placement, performing arts and sports programs. The key focus of the report was on the high school building and growing enrolllment.
"The facility needs to be changed to meet the needs of the students," Dr. Kazmark said. "We really do need to increase the core spaces as well as specialty spaces such as science labs. The labs have not been appreciably updated. They’re basically the way they were 45 years ago."
Dr. Kazmark said areas that need immediate improvements are the gymnasium, auditorium, cafeteria and library media center. He said he hopes to have a referedum to fund such improvements on the table for April 2001. The referendum would be subject to a vote by Princeton residents only.
The facilities at PHS were built in 1928 and 1955. The science labs were built as part of the 1955 expansion. Currently, the school is making use of two trailers as temporary classrooms because of a lack of space.
For the current academic year, enrollment at PHS is approximately 1,100, with 316 freshman. The first-year student total is the largest in more than a decade, according to Dr. Kazmark.
Among the nonfacility improvements made for the 2000-2001 school year were the hiring of five new teachers, the hiring Roz Goldburg as mathmatics mentor as the supervisor position was vacant and, especially, the hiring of two guidence conselors, joining the four already in place at PHS, to work specifically with freshmen students.
"It reduces the workload of the guidance staff," Dr. Kazmark said. "We’ve been able to change the model for freshman so they get more intensive service. The needs of sophomores, juniors and seniors are different from freshman."
Several options are being explored to alleviate the overcrowding by the PHS staff, according to Dr. Kazmark. One plan would relocate many of the sports teams to another location, possibly the Valley Road complex, which currently hosts the boys and girls soccer teams and build out onto those current field areas.
"Clearly, a lot of that land is playing fields," said Dr. Kazmark. "One of the options is to move the playing fields to another location and use those areas. It’s nice to have playing fields in you backyard, but it is not a necessity."
Other options Dr. Kazmark said the school would explore is a possible partnership with the school’s neighbor, the Westminster Choir College or closing down Walnut Street to free up additional space.
The principal also said he wanted to offer more opportunities for college- and vocationally minded students.
"We’re trying to ensure that students at PHS are equally engaged and are able to set goals for meaningful graduation and meaningful occupations," Dr. Kazmark said.
PHS currently does not offer the same amount of options for hands-on learning as it does for college preparation, said Dr. Kazmark. He said, as the availability of Advanced Placement courses increases, there was a noticeable decrease in "hands-on" offerings such as woodshop, auto shop and home economics.
"Not all students are going to avail themselves in Advanced Placement courses," he continued. "We need to have a more comprehensive program."
