At new school site, just trailers and athletic fields With state funding dried up, a larger Phillipsburg High will have to wait Sunday, September 09, 2007 • BY MIKE FRASSINELLI • Star-Ledger Staff There will be action this fall on the site of the proposed new Phillipsburg High School, when soccer and field hockey teams enjoy their first season on new athletic fields. Unfortunately, for the students who attend what amounts to New Jersey's largest trailer park school, with a state record 31 modular classrooms at the cramped present Phillipsburg High, it's not the kind of action that involves cranes and excavators. A roomier Phillipsburg High School was to be built at Roseberry Street and Belvidere Road in Lopatcong Township in time for the 2008-09 school year, but state funding for the project dried up two summers ago, leaving only a paved road to nowhere. Excavators had already begun work on the athletic fields and an access road when the high school for Phillipsburg, one of the state's 31 special-needs Abbott school districts, was removed by the state's cash-strapped Schools Construction Corp. from its list of projects. The Schools Construction Corp. has since been reorganized as the Schools Development Authority. Elsewhere in Warren and Sussex counties, progress is being made between the school walls. In Sussex County, 40 new Smart Boards and new servers will arrive at Newton High, while a half-dozen ActivBoards debut in classrooms at Andover Regional. A "reverse 911" computerized telephone notification system arrives at Franklin and a new grading system was introduced at High Point Regional High School, while Sandyston-Walpack is squeezing 17 more minutes into its school day. Away from school, Superintendent Robert Walker, a fixture at Kittatinny Regional High School, enjoys his first year of retirement. Meanwhile, taxpayers from the North Warren district in Warren County will decide Sept. 25 whether they want to pay to make their middle and high schools grow. The proposed 325,000-square-foot, $95 million Phillipsburg high school was to be built less than a mile from the present high school on Hillcrest Boulevard in Phillipsburg. But at the start of the 2007-08 school year, the project is no farther along than it was at the beginning of 2005-06. Now, about 40 percent of Phillipsburg's 1,700 students are in trailers at any one time. Projected enrollment for September 2010 is about 1,900 students Still, Phillipsburg officials are not giving up hope. Key leaders such as superintendents, mayors and school board members and attorneys in Phillipsburg and its sending districts -- Alpha, Bloomsbury, Greenwich, Lopatcong, and Pohatcong -- have been meeting over the last couple months in the Phillipsburg school board office "to keep the project going," said Phillipsburg Business Administrator Bill Poch. Scott Weiner of the Schools Development Authority is expected to attend an upcoming meeting of the key leaders group. In addition, Poch said, Assemblyman Mike Doherty (R-Warren) was going to arrange a meeting with state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy. Preparing for the possibility that the project will not be built with state funds, key leaders of Phillipsburg and its sending districts are looking at a Plan B -- possibly having an architectural firm do a feasibility study to investigate their options for building a high school. On the northern end of the county, a two-part bond referendum for $18.8 million of proposed additions and renovations to relieve increasing enrollment in the North Warren district will go before the voters of Blairstown, Frelinghuysen, Hardwick and Knowlton on Sept. 25. The first question, a response to the growing enrollment and class sizes reaching 30 students per room, will address the addition of 13 new classrooms, a new technology lab, a wrestling room, new restrooms, a storage room and a mechanical room. Four existing classrooms would be renovated to create two new science labs, permanent walls would replace partitions in two classrooms, boys and girls locker rooms would be renovated, the boiler would be replaced and site and parking lot upgrades would be made. The price tag for that question is $15.5 million. The second question would address the addition of two art rooms, a music room and a weight room. That price is $3.3 million. "Clearly, it is necessary," high school Principal Ken Greene said. "We're looking at simply adding classroom space. We haven't added on to the high school since it was built in 1970." "The class sizes are so big, it's shocking," added school board member Frederick P. Cook, a retired educator. "We have six teachers with no room. They have to carry their things around with them." Pete McKenna, a local carpenter and tax watchdog who runs a newsletter called "Pete's Counter Points," urged residents to vote no. While agreeing with the scope of the proposed changes, he deemed the $285-per-square-foot costs exorbitant. There will be an architect's presentation and tour at the high school at 7 p.m. Tuesday. And on Sept. 22, a tour of the building will be given. Mike Frassinelli may be reached at mfrassinelli@starledger.com or (908) 475-1218. © 2007 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.