Until recently, fresh air and outdoor activities were rarely a part of the daily routine at Joseph F. Brandt Middle School.
Because the school does not have an outdoor yard or athletic fields of its own, games and sports were relegated to the gym or classrooms of the schoolhouse at the corner of Ninth and Garden streets.
In densely packed urban areas such as Hoboken, new open space for schoolchildren is tough to come by. That’s why the city’s Board of Education and the Brandt School decided to look to the roof for an area where the kids could play.
The project, which was completed recently, not only repaired a dilapidated and leaking roof, but fitted it so that students of the school could use the space for physical education. “It’s like giving the city another playground,” said longtime Board of Education member James Farina Wednesday. “Those students are confined inside all day. Using the roof as recreational space gives the children the opportunity to get outside and get some fresh air and sunlight.”
Farina said the area is fitted with state-approved safety rubber matting and is encircled by a fence. He added that the space could be used in the future for different community groups. “Now that we have it, we have to get the maximum amount of use out of it,” said Farina. “We have to start planning events and activities so that members of the community can make use of the new open space.”
Board of Education President David Anthony expressed his pleasure with the completed project Thursday. “When you have so little open space it seems like a natural to use the roof,” he said as he toured the new rooftop playground. “All of the other schools in the city are within a block of a park that they can use, except the Brandt School. The Brandt school was in dire need for some outdoor open space, and that’s what this provides.”
More than open space
The opening of the Brandt’s roof also has a second significance. It marks one of the first tangible products of the city’s $54 million in state Abbott funding, which goes to urban “special needs” schools. In fact, all six schools in Hoboken have recently completed construction on much-needed new roofs as part of a massive overhaul of the facilities. “These project are the result of many years of hard work by a lot of people,” said Anthony. “It’s nice to see these local projects finished to fruition.”
The renovations are the product of the New Jersey Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act that was passed by both houses of the legislature and signed into law by the governor on July 18, 2000.
The act provides $7 billion to the state’s 30 “special needs” Abbott school districts, of which Hoboken is one. A 1998 New Jersey Supreme Court decision said that the state is required to provide educational infrastructure improvements in the designated districts.