Phillipsburg
district caught without a plan
Future of high school uncertain
after funding canceled
Friday, July 29, 2005 • BY MIKE FRASSINELLI •
Star-Ledger Staff
Construction workers have already begun
turning the earth at what was billed as the future site of
the Phillipsburg High School.
Down the road sits a cramped high school
that has 31 classroom trailers, the most in New
Jersey.
In just a few months, Phillipsburg was
scheduled to take construction bids on a new $95 million,
325,000-square-foot high school that was to be ready for the
start of the 2008-09 school year.
But now that the high school is off the
state's school construction list, shell-shocked school
representatives say there is no immediate Plan B.
In a job where they are used to giving
answers, school officials have none about the high school
vanishing act.
"We had no clue," Phillipsburg Business
Administrator Bill Poch said after the high school became
one of more than 200 projects in the state to be left in
limbo.
"From every indication we had, the high
school was going to be approved. We don't have another plan
at this point."
"We have no other alternative," added
school board President Rod Pianelli. "There isn't a vacant
high school down the street for us to move into."
The $7 million to $8 million site work
project for the high school has already been approved.
Construction workers have already begun the first phase of
the project, including work on the athletic fields and an
access road.
The workers have not been directed to
stop that part of the construction.
Planned to open at Roseberry Street and
Belvidere Road in Lopatcong Township, the new school was
expected to have a student capacity of 2,000, a more than 60
percent increase from the 1,200 capacity at the present high
school on Hillcrest Boulevard in Phillipsburg.
Poch said school officials sat around
their computers Wednesday and read and reread the list of
the 59 projects approved under the state's cash-strapped
school construction program, thinking they must have missed
the part where Phillipsburg gets a new high
school.
Eventually, he counted the projects, and
realized the high school didn't make the final
59.
Pianelli also was shocked.
"The rumor was that they were going to
run out of money. I just didn't expect it to be this soon,"
he said. "At this point in the ballgame, there is an end to
the money. Where we go from here, I don't think anybody
knows."
Poch read the criteria for state school
construction funding, such as overcrowding, and thought that
Phillipsburg fit the requirements.
"I don't know of any other high school
that has 31 trailers, or anywhere even approaching that," he
said.
Phillipsburg school representatives
stressed that they weren't questioning the validity of the
59 approved projects. They simply think they deserve to be
on that list, too.
For Phillipsburg Superintendent H. Gordon
Pethick, Wednesday's announcement was the punch to the
stomach. Yesterday was the sobering search for
options.
He said he tried to remain optimistic,
saying that just because the funding isn't available today
doesn't mean it won't be available in the future.
Pethick said it is also likely that
litigation will test whether the requirements for funding
the state's neediest Abbott school districts are being met.
He also has been in contact with local lawmakers.
"It's a sad day," Pethick said. "But in
Phillipsburg, we have always been fighters, and we will
continue to fight until our children get the facilities they
need."
Mike Frassinelli covers Warren County. He may be reached
at mfras sinelli@starledger.com or (908) 475-1218.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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