While no school board member at the Dec. 6 meeting would claim credit for releasing information to the press on the upcoming bond to expand the Middle-High School complex, members did confirm that discussions are underway.
"We have set no date nor dollar amount," said Board President Paul Amico. "We don’t know if the bond will be for $1 million or $35 million. It is just too early to tell."
Board Member Tom Troyer said he had been approached by several local newspapers during the last few weeks asking about the bond.
"The reporters told me it would be for $25 million," Troyer said. "I couldn’t comment. I didn’t know anything about it."
Ed Rittberg, vice chairman of the board and a member of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, said the committee had looked at rough drawings and discussed possible costs, but had come to no final numbers.
"When the time comes and we have the right numbers, we’ll do a full presentation to the board," Rittberg said, noting that the bond would be designed to meet upgrades outlined in a recent five-year facilities plan. This plan, which was required by the state, outlines the conditions of the school district and details the necessary improvements.
But the state is asking school districts to hold back on putting up referendums, and has imposed a five-month moratorium on new bond issues to see if the cost of construction will come down. Rittberg said this makes it impossible for the school district to put the bond before the voters during this school year.
Superintendent Constantino Scerbo noted that the facilities plan does not include the impact of newly proposed housing in the district, and said this could change the ultimate project. Since November, two new development projects have been proposed in Secaucus. The largest of these would construct 225 housing units on property in the north end of Secaucus.
"We did a study a few years ago which allowed us to gauge our needs until 2003," Scerbo said. "This involved getting records of live births and looking at how many children we might expect out of existing developments. With the new development, we might find our study already out of date. We know our student population will eventually exceed 2,000. This may happen sooner than we expect."
As of Oct. 15, student enrollment was 1,820. This is up from 1,434 in 1991 when the population of schools began to increase in Secaucus.
Other business
Board Member Michael Schlemm said the district needed to review its late policy after nearly 20 students – including his own son – were issued in-school suspension as a result of being late.
"I was shocked at this," Schlemm said. "I wasn’t aware that we had changed our lateness policy. It may be that our schools are not following proper policy."
Scerbo said the district has two kinds of suspension. In-school suspension has students detained at the school, and is generally given to students with less serious violations of rules. Out-of-school suspension – issued for serious offenses – has students kept at the board office for special instruction.
Troyer said that either type of suspension disrupts lessons, and this is particularly true since the high school adopted block scheduling which has longer classes, and thus would cause a student to miss more lessons if suspended.
Also at the meeting, Rittberg, in response to a resident’s offer to erect a traffic sign on Huber Street, said signs are already in place, and wondered if the district could so anything more to slow traffic along the narrow street. He said the problem comes in the morning and afternoon when parents are picking up and dropping off students.
School official may also have to choose between purchasing a new truck for supplying student meals in the district or a pickup truck that would allow the district to plow its parking lots. Earlier this year, the district agreed not to purchase both vehicles as part of the budget cuts done after voters rejected the school budget.