District
starts campaign to secure high school
funding
Tuesday, August 09, 2005 • By
MICHAEL P. BUFFER • The
Express-Times
PHILLIPSBURG -- School officials are
organizing a public relations campaign to get the state to
fund the construction of a new Phillipsburg High
School.
Two weeks ago, school officials learned
that the roughly $90 million high school had been cut from a
list of projects the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp.,
a state agency, will pay for with the last $1.4 billion of a
special fund.
During Monday's board meeting,
Superintendent Gordon Pethick said people at last week's
board meeting expressed interest in launching a campaign "to
make contact with people in the town and politicians." He
said anyone interested in the public relations campaign
should contact him or Assistant Superintendent Jackie
Attinello.
"It's important that we provide for our
children the best schools that we can," Pethick
said.
Pethick later explained that goals of the
campaign are "to keep this issue in the forefront" and get
as many people as possible involved.
Preliminary work at the site in Lopatcong
Township has started. It includes the construction of seven
athletic fields, parking lots and a three-quarter-mile
entrance drive from Belvidere Road. The access road must be
completed before the school can be built.
Also at Monday's meeting, the board voted
to appoint attorney Richard Shapiro as special counsel for
Abbott school issues. The Phillipsburg School District is
one of 31 Abbott school districts -- poor districts named
after court decisions ordering equitable per-pupil financing
-- and therefore expected the New Jersey Schools
Construction Corp. to pay for new high school.
At last week's board meeting, Shapiro
told those at the meeting to lobby their legislators and
said he plans to file a petition with the New Jersey Supreme
Court on behalf of Phillipsburg asking it to force New
Jersey to pay for the new high school. Shapiro's pay rate is
$145 an hour, said district business administrator Bill
Poch.
Hundreds of other Abbott district
construction projects also were nixed, including
Phillipsburg's plan to renovate Andover-Morris Elementary
School for an estimated $13 million. Only 59 of an
anticipated 350 projects statewide are still moving
forward.
The school board on Monday also appointed
attorney David Rubin as special counsel for athletics. Rubin
is directing Phillipsburg High School's push for an
exemption from the so-called "70 percent rule," which would
allow its sports teams to compete in the Pennsylvania-based
Lehigh Valley Conference and still qualify for New Jersey's
post-season playoffs. Rubin's pay rate is $135 per hour,
Poch said.
In other business, the board voted to
re-bid a roof project at the high school auditorium. The
school district received one bid from Hygrade Insulators
Inc., of Phillipsburg, but the company has not been
pre-approved by the state Department of Treasury for
roofing.
Officials hoped to get the roof work done
before the school year started but now will try to get it
done in November when students are not in school, Poch
said.
Reporter Michael P. Buffer can be reached at 610-258-7171
or by e-mail at mbuffer@express-times.com.
© 2005 The Express-Times. Used with
permission.
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