Students start squeezing into school on Sept. 7
For space, computer labs, music and art classrooms have been eliminated
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

In December 2004, Upper Freehold Regional Elementary/Middle School Principal Miriam Peluso described the overcrowding in her school as serious, but today the situation has only gotten worse.

Although during the same month of that year, Upper Freehold Township and Allentown voters passed a $39 million building referendum for renovations and a new middle school, there may not be relief for Peluso, her students and staff until 2008 at the earliest.

"Even if [the new school] opens in 2007, it's a scary prospect to figure out how we're going to hang on that long," Peluso said in 2004.

The Upper Freehold Regional School District had plans to open its new middle school in 2007, but now almost two years later, due to soil contamination on the proposed Ellisdale Road site of the new school and other problems, the school district has postponed its opening until at least 2008.

Peluso recently spoke to the Examiner about how the school district has been coping with the overcrowding since 2004, and how it expects to deal with it during the upcoming school year, as students will be back in class starting Sept. 7.

Peluso said the average class size this year in each grade level will be about 23 students.

"It is not as large as I had thought it might be at this point," she said. "However, numbers in the low 20s for kindergarten are not desirable."

In 2004, there was a student population of 1,147 students. This year, there will be 67 more students.

"We are starting this year with 1,214 students," she said, "but we will surely add to that as the year progresses, increasing the class sizes by one or two per class."

In order to deal with the population increase, the school will have to make more adjustments to its already altered educational space.

In 2004, the guidance counselor began using a former closet as her office. Since there were no real storage areas left in the building, the school started using the auditorium's balcony for that purpose.

Since 2004, overcrowding in the school has been most evident during lunchtime. Lunch lines have gotten so long that children have little time left to eat after they purchase lunch.

In 2004, the school had to establish an overflow lunchroom, which it also uses as a special education classroom for the rest of the day. The school only has one science lab.

There are no computer labs in the seventh- and eighth-grade wing. While there were two computer labs in the school, one was converted into classroom space so only one computer lab has served the entire K-8 population since 2004.

More changes were made to the school environment to accommodate last year's increasing student population. The reading room in the media center, which formerly served as the librarian's instructional space, was turned into the location for occupational and physical therapy (OT/PT), according to Peluso. She said the librarian's lessons are now delivered in a sectioned-off area in the main part of the library.

"At times," Peluso said, "we have Project Discovery going on in what used to be a media center conference room, along with a library lesson, OT/PT, a class doing research and small-group basic-skills instruction all at the same time - which is certainly not the typically quiet environment of a library."

Besides rotating classes out of the cafeteria due to overcrowding, the school has also removed some of the third- and fourth-grade classes from the playground on a rotating basis due to safety concerns, according to Peluso.

Students had either stayed inside for recess or were taken outdoors for a walk in order to keep the number of students on the playground at a reasonable level, she said.

In addition, the school had to section off the one remaining computer lab to provide a space for small-group basic-skills instruction, according to Peluso. Although the school does not have any computer labs, some portable, wireless computers are available for students to use off carts.

More accordion doors were added to the cafeteria in order to section off a third area of that room to create an instructional space for three periods of seventh- and eighth-grade Spanish, according to Peluso.

Two of the elementary art classes were moved into the Annex, which is another building on the Upper Freehold Regional School District campus. This meant that fourth-grade students had to travel back and forth, which impacted on their instructional time, according to Peluso.

Peluso said the school also had to combine groups during many of its physical education class periods. She said that sometimes three teachers would share the gym, with two of the classes sharing one-half of the gym while the third class used the other side. At certain times, Peluso said two teachers would instruct three gym classes at once, which meant that each teacher was responsible for roughly 36-38 students.

Peluso said that an increase in the prekindergarten (pre-K) population necessitated the addition of a third gym session.

"Since there was no additional space for that," she said, "a three-session-per-day schedule was created so that the pre-K sessions could be spread out between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. and could all be conducted in the same room."

Mandated standardized testing days brought their own challenges, according to Peluso. She said students took tests in board office building rooms, elementary/middle school guidance offices, dining rooms and building administrative offices. But this arrangement forced various personnel to vacate their working areas, she said.

Since there has been no faculty room, Peluso said that the dining room has also been used by some faculty members during their preparation periods.

For the 2006-07 school year, even more changes have been made to accommodate the growing student population. Peluso said that a special education resource room has been subdivided into two instructional spaces.

The school has also eliminated the classroom in the Annex that served as a space for art and music instruction and instrumental lessons, according to Peluso. The room will now house an additional sixth-grade class, she said, and art and music will be taught off a cart.

Language and art teachers in the main school building were already teaching off a cart in 2004.

According to Peluso, the reconstruction of the old main office space and classrooms in the primary wing of the school did not create enough space to alleviate any of the previous overcrowding conditions. However, she said the renovations did provide for additional resource rooms and a fifth-grade classroom, which are needed due to increased enrollment.

"Without that, I'm not sure where we would have put those classes," she said.

Planning for next year's squeeze has already begun. Peluso met with Lucas Coesfeld, the elementary school vice principal, and Mark Guterl, the middle school vice principal, over the summer. They started looking at configurations for the 2007-08 school year, both with and without the Annex.

The Annex, which currently contains sixth- and some fifth-grade classes, is scheduled to return for use by Allentown High School (AHS) next year.

Peluso said that she, Coesfeld and Guterl met with high school administrators to discuss the impact of returning the Annex to AHS and to talk about salvaging that space for the elementary school.

"We will move forward on contingency planning as soon as a firm decision is made about who will have possession of the Annex in 2007-08," Peluso said. "Without that knowledge, contingency planning cannot advance since the implications are far-reaching."

Peluso also plans to meet this month with AHS Principal Christopher Nagy and interim Superintendent of Schools Robert Smith to discuss the overcrowding issues. When a firm decision about related issues has been made and approved, according to Peluso, a representative committee of elementary and middle school teachers and administrators will work on a plan for 2007-08.