New Elberon School planned on Park Ave. BY CHRISTINE VARNO Staff Writer The new Elberon School rendering LONG BRANCH - An application for a new Elberon School building on Park Avenue is expected to be heard by the Long Branch Planning Board at a special meeting next month. The Long Branch Public Schools system was expected to present its plans Nov. 20, but the application was rescheduled for a special meeting Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. due to a lack of a quorum at the board meeting. Upon approval, the new Elberon School will mark the sixth school in the Long Branch school district to be reconstructed since 1999, according to Superintendent Joseph M. Ferraina. "We have embarked on creating quality learning environments for our children," said Ferraina last week. "We have been incredibly successful. "It will be an amazing accomplishment," he said. Plans call for the current 50,000-squarefoot Elberon School to be razed and replaced with a 120,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility, according to George Catrambone, assistant of the superintendent. The estimated $30 million project is expected to break ground this winter if plans are approved by the city, according to Catrambone. The school district plans to demolish the old Elberon School in January and to start construction on the new building in the fall of 2008. The new building will take approximately 18 months to be constructed and should be open by September 2010, Catrambone said. The applicant is not seeking any variances for the project. Plans call for the new school to house up to 700 students in grades pre-kindergarten though fifth grade, according to Catrambone. The current school housed up to 450 students in grades kindergarten through second grade. The new building will assume the same basic model of the already newly constructed Amerigo A. Anastasia School on Seventh Avenue and the Gregory Elementary School on Monmouth Avenue, Catrambone said. The school will include 40 classrooms, a tutor room, a media center, an art room, a music room, a cafetorium and a gymnasium, according to Catrambone. The Elberon School has been vacated and students have been dispersed throughout other schools in the nine-school district, according to Catrambone. "Over the course of the next 25 to 30 years and more, the new schools built in Long Branch will not only be able to accommodate the needs of the students and the community, but they are also able to serve as major emergency shelters," Ferraina said. "The schools are all equipped to become shelters." The new school will be paid for with Abbott funding, according to Catrambone. Long Branch is designated as one of the state's 31 Abbott districts, which means that the state allocates additional funding to the district so that a "thorough and efficient" education can be provided to the students. Other new schools that have opened in the city include the Long Branch High School, the Long Branch Middle School and a preschool, according to Ferraina.