Millstone may pass trailers on to Allentown schools
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

UPPER FREEHOLD - The trailers at the Millstone Township Elementary School may move to serve students in the Upper Freehold Regional School District this year.

Once the Millstone Township School District opens its new middle school on Baird Road, it will no longer need to use temporary classrooms. Since the Upper Freehold Regional School District's (UFRSD) new middle school project has experienced various delays since 2004, the district will need to rely on the use of trailers to house some of its students until the project - which will begin this year on Breza Road - is completed.

At the May 22 Planning Board meeting, David Fraytak, of Faridy Veisz Fraytak in Trenton, the architect for the UFRSD's new middle school, said the district would use the trailers for three years until the new school is completed.

According to Fraytak, the district would use one single-wide trailer as a classroom for Allentown High School (AHS) students. The single-wide trailer would be placed at the end of what is known as the 400 hallway at the high school, which is near the bus drop-off site. The unit would be located off a corridor that discharges from the hallway, approximately 20 feet from the doorway.

A double-wide, or two-classroom, unit would be placed at the current elementary/middle school. Fraytak said the trailer would be placed at the southern end of the elementary/middle school, adjacent to a pair of doors near the gym.

Two fifth-grade classes would use the double-wide trailer. The unit is currently being used at the Millstone elementary school but is owned by a company that leases it to the Millstone Township Board of Education. Fraytak said the Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education is in the process of negotiating a continuation of the lease for three years.

The Millstone Township Board of Education owns the single-wide unit, he said, and the Upper Freehold Regional School District would buy it from Millstone.

All the trailers will have toilet facilities and be handicapped-accessible, as required by the state Department of Education, he said. There will also be a secondary means of exit in each classroom, he said.

Fraytak said that installing both units would require disturbance of less than 5,000 square feet. The district will have to remove three trees that were planted about 10 years ago, according to Fraytak, but they will be replaced when the units are taken out.

When asked if the district may need more temporary units, Fraytak said the Board of Education will review the situation on a yearly basis.

"They may need additional units in the third year," he said, "but they want to take it one year at a time."

There is room to put another single-wide unit near the high school, according to Fraytak.

When asked how much the trailers will cost the school district, Viola Yosifon, the school district's business administrator, said the district will not know until it goes out to bid.

"The main cost is in moving and installation," Yosifon said. "The bid is due in June."