Officials not giving up on new school Greenwich Township board members will hold meeting Tuesday to answer questions. Monday, March 03, 2008 • By ANDREA EILENBERGER • The Express-Times GREENWICH TWP. | The long-stalled new Phillipsburg High School isn't on the state's approved list of school construction projects, but school officials said they aren't losing hope it might eventually be built. Greenwich Township School Board members are holding an informational public forum Tuesday to discuss the fate of the new high school. Greenwich School District Superintendent Kevin Brennan said the meeting is an attempt to answer the public's questions and dispel rumors. "We wanted to let people know what progress, if any, has been made and where we saw things going in the future," school board President Denise Valle said. The Schools Construction Corp. was set up to build or renovate 350 schools in the state's 31 poorest districts, called Abbott districts, but the agency ran out of money in 2005. In Phillipsburg's case, the state had finished about $16 million in site preparation for a new $88 million school on land in Lopatcong Township. Although athletic fields are up and running, no other construction progress has been made. The present high school, built in 1927, has about 1,700 students. The district has brought 31 trailers to serve as classrooms on the school grounds. A group called Key Leaders -- which includes school administrators, board members and municipal officials from Phillipsburg, Greenwich and the other four sending districts -- meets regularly behind closed doors to discuss the issue and strategize. Phillipsburg Council President David DeGerolamo, who is part of that group, is confident Phillipsburg is on track to receive positive news. He said the governor's office has a real understanding for the district's plight. "We are closer today than we have ever been in the past to making this happen," DeGerolamo said. Late last fall, DeGerolamo said he spoke with representatives of the governor's office on a separate issue. That led to a dialogue about the high school problem and eventually a January meeting with top-level members of the governor's office. DeGerolamo, Phillipsburg School Board President Paul Rummerfield and a small number of other officials attended the meeting. DeGerolamo said at that point, Phillipsburg was not among the projects included in $2.5 billion of state funding expected around midyear. Now, he is confident Phillipsburg will be comfortably on that list. An issue keeping Phillipsburg's project off the approved list is the square footage of the proposed school. Initially the high school was part of a state demonstration project program and its design, for which the state paid about $1 million, included features aimed at community involvement, Rummerfield said. Ultimately it wasn't selected for that program and those features were cut from the design. It still includes what the state considers too much space according to a ratio that compares the number of students with the amount of space, Rummerfield said. That issue is being addressed, DeGerolamo said. "We're really working very diligently," DeGerolamo said. Reporter Andrea Eilenberger can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at aeilenberger@express-times.com.