U.F. middle school could send students to Millstone
New school construction delay causes serious overcrowding issues
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

ALLENTOWN - The Upper Freehold Regional School District still has not broken ground at the Ellisdale Road site for its new middle school, originally scheduled to open in September 2007.

School officials have now updated their timeline to show a September 2008 school opening, as soil remediation and wastewater treatment plant issues still need to be addressed.

In December 2004, Allentown and Upper Freehold Township voters passed a $39 million building renovation referendum that included the construction of the new middle school.

Construction of the school has been delayed, however, because the school district recently discovered that the Ellisdale Road site it chose for the new building is contaminated with arsenic and a historic pesticide called dieldrin. The district plans to clean up the contamination by collecting all the pollution into one area and capping it under clean fill and asphalt. The cleanup plan is estimated to cost $950,000, and has been met with some protest by locals who would prefer to see all the contamination removed from the site.

The construction has also been delayed because the school is situated in what the state considers to be a Planning Area 4, which cannot have new public sewer/water installed. The school district is currently looking at its options in terms of how to get water/sewer service to the site.

Meanwhile, the current middle school is seriously overcrowded, as attested to by district employees and others at recent Board of Education meetings.

Wendy Gansberg, an Upper Freehold resident who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the board last year, spoke about the overcrowding at the Aug. 16 board meeting. Gansberg said that at one time she and her children were all students in overcrowded schools.

In an effort to offer a temporary solution to the current overcrowding situation, Gansberg noted that neighboring Millstone Township will soon be completing its new middle school. Since the Upper Freehold Regional School District already has a send-receive

relationship with Millstone, Gans-berg asked the board to consider extending that relationship.

The current send/receive relationship involves sending Millstone students to Allentown High School. Gansberg asked if the district could temporarily have Allentown and Upper Freehold middle school students sent to Millstone's new middle school.

If the district decided to send its students to Millstone's new middle school, Gansberg said it could keep Allentown and Upper Freehold students with their own teachers instead of mixing them into classes with Millstone students.

When asked about Gansberg's suggestion, Millstone Superintendent of Schools Mary Anne Donahue said she knows that Robert Smith, the interim superintendent for the Upper Freehold Regional School District, is working diligently to examine all of his school district's options.

"He and I have met," Donahue said, "and he has already requested that we examine the possibility of a temporary receive for eighth-grade students for the year 2007-08."

Donahue said she has agreed to work with Smith during the next two months to examine the issue thoroughly.

"If our joint review deems this to be a feasible option, then a proposal will be presented to both boards of education for their consideration," she said.