School expansion plan set to begin this month
Administrative offices to be relocated to Memorial Middle School
BY DANIEL HOWLEY Staff Writer

EATONTOWN - The Board of Education ismoving forwardwith plans to expand the Memorial Middle School on Grant Avenue to make room for the district's administrative staff.

The board awarded a $1.1 million contract to Lighton Industries Inc. of Lakewood at the Dec. 20 Board of Education meeting for an expansion plan at theMemorialMiddle School, which calls for constructing offices for school administrators.

"This has been in the borough's master plan for the last several years," said Superintendent of Schools Barbara Struble last week. "It was a matter of…money.

"We are hoping to be in [the new school] by September," she added.

Construction on the project is expected to start this month, according to Struble.

Plans call for the addition at the school to house the district's administrative offices, which are currently located at the former Steelman School building on Broad Street.

The offices will include the school business administrator's office, the district superintendent's office, along with the district's curriculumand technology offices, according to Struble.

"Part of the school model for the state is for administrative offices to be attached to their school," Struble said. "The state is looking for schools and administrative offices to be attached, rather than be their own entity."

The Memorial Middle School, built over 50 years ago, currently houses approximately 275 seventh- and eight-grade students.

The Board of Education received seven proposals for the school project in the most recent round of bidding, according to Struble, who said Lighton Industries came in with the lowest bid.

Struble explained that the board had gone out to bid for the project several times last year, but had to reject all the proposals for coming in over bid.

Funding for theMemorialMiddle School project was made available after the school district sold the former Fred G. Steelman School building in September to a nonprofit group for $1.4 million.

The group, known as Ilan High School Building Association Inc., purchased the Steelman School property and plans to convert it into a private all-girls Jewish high school.

The Steelman School was originally built in 1908 with six rooms. It was expanded twice over the years, once in 1938 and again in 1948. The expansions included an addition of six more classrooms and the construction of a fireproof stairwell.

It has remained relatively unchanged since the second expansion, according to Struble, who said she is happy that the building will once again be used as a school.

"It is really going to add to the community," Struble said. "They are really going to fix it up."

Plans for the former Steelman School building call for Ilan High School Building Association to expand the current structure.

The proposed project calls for the construction of a 6,820-square-foot gymnasium at the corner of Broad Street and Academy Avenue; a two-story, 689-square-foot addition facing College Avenue, and a 627- square-foot addition to the front entrance facing Broad Street. The addition at the front entrancewill include an elevator to access the second floor of the building.

The administrative officeswill remain at the Steelman School until construction starts on the private school project sometime this month, according to Struble.

Once construction begins, the administrative offices will be temporarily relocated to a modular building behind the Meadowbrook School on Wyckoff Road until construction on the new offices are complete at the Memorial Middle School, according to Struble.