Contrary to a report that was published last week, Guttenberg Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Penna assured that the estimated $400,000 conversion of two former storage rooms into classrooms to be used by the district’s pre-kindergarten students, scheduled to begin in September, will continue as originally planned. “Those two rooms are going full steam ahead,” Penna said. “They are ready to roll. It’s currently in the hands of the state Department of Education. We have received verbal approval but we don’t have anything in writing. All we’re waiting for is the written letter from them. They came and inspected the site and had no problems with the conversion.”
Last week, it was reported in the local daily newspaper that the Guttenberg Board of Education was “reluctant to proceed without something in writing.”
“That’s just not true,” Penna said. “They will be beautiful rooms, modeled after the pre-kindergarten classrooms at the Althea Gibson Early Childhood Academy in East Orange. I brought three board members with me to see the classrooms in East Orange and they were all very impressed.”
Guttenberg’s one grammar school, the Anna L. Klein School, was in dire need of the conversion because the school had no available space to house the projected 60 students that will participate in the state-mandated pre-kindergarten program that is required to be in place by the 2001-2002 school year.
“Those two classrooms should be able to handle the Pre-K students,” Penna said. “We’ll have 15 kids in a class and two half-day sessions, so that should be able to handle it.”
And the converted storage rooms will be the permanent home of the pre-kindergarten program.
However, the plan to build a proposed two-story, 20-classroom extension of the school has been “put on hold temporarily,” according to Penna.
Two years ago, the Guttenberg Board of Education purchased the old embroidery factory that was located adjacent to the school and razed the factory last year with the hopes of beginning the extension on the site sometime this year.
But those plans had been tabled when it was learned that perhaps even the two-story extension would not be expansive enough to handle the school’s worsening overcrowding problem.
“The lot that is there is quite small,” Penna said. “And building an extension like that is an expensive proposition. You have to proceed very cautiously. We’re not saying that we won’t move ahead in that direction, but we’re tabling it for now and taking a closer look. It’s not permanently put away, just put aside for the time being.”
Penna said that an extension that would best fit the needs of the students would require more land – and there just isn’t any available land in the vicinity, or the entire township for that matter.
“If you’re talking about a town with empty fields and lots, then it would be easier,” Penna said. “But as tight as properties are in Guttenberg, we really have to proceed with caution.”
Penna has secured three proposals from possible construction managers for the board to review. The proposals came from contractor Michael Pollotta, as well as Turner Construction of Somerset and York Hunter Capital of New York.
Pollotta was the contractor in charge of the previous extension to the school, which took place in 1995.
“They are all major firms and the board is very familiar and comfortable with Pollotta as the construction manager,” Penna said. “So we’re putting the pieces into place.”
However, the Board of Education will continue to own an empty lot on 70th Street as they continue to search for a more viable solution. But the pre-K classrooms are set to continue as planned.
“We’re going to examine every possible angle,” Penna said.