By: Gwen Runkle
The West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional Board of Education ended its debate over whether to add an instrumental music room to the Village School at its meeting Tuesday.
After hearing a slew of public comment pressing the board to add the room but also to proceed in a fiscally responsible manner, the board passed a resolution authorizing the architectural firm of Faridy, Veisz and Fraytak to develop formal construction design documents for one large ensemble room by a vote of 6-1.
Board members Hemant Marathe and Diane Hasling were not present. Dee Dee Dodson cast the lone dissenting vote.
According to Gary Reece, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, the architects will be paid $32,000 to develop the drawings for the 1,735-square-foot, one-story instrumental music room.
He estimated construction of the building to cost $445,000, but stressed it could be paid for with currently available funds.
Debate over whether the room was needed began after the board decided on a kindergarten-through-third-grade, fourth-and-fifth-grade elementary grade configuration a few months ago.
Under the K-3/4-5 configuration, the Village School, currently for K-3 students, will be converted to a 4-5 school. But when the Village School is compared to the Upper Elementary School, the current 4-5 school, its music facilities fall short.
To resolve the inequity, Mr. Reece suggested building the large instrumental music room and temporarily converting two rooms, a 685-square-foot faculty room and a 330-square-foot speech room, into instructional or rehearsal spaces for the 2002-2003 school year.
Later in the 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 school years, the board could build two smaller rooms and reclaim the faculty and speech rooms.
But while many residents have said they support this plan in order to sustain the district’s top-notch music program, some residents of Village Grande, a retirement community on Old Trenton Road, have asked the board to be wary of the costs it is incurring, urging the board to develop a more effective long-range plan so it can better foresee additional construction in the future.
"Seniors are interested in the education process and are not trying to shoot it down," said Joe Dantone, one of the more than 50 Village Grande residents present at the meeting Tuesday. "All of us are asking for a good school system, but at a fiscally responsible level of expenditures."
The final schematics for the instrumental music room are expected to be submitted to the state Department of Education and state Department of Community Affairs for approval in January, Mr. Reece said.
The district could then go out to bid in February, award a contract in March, begin construction in April and have the room completed in October, he said.
