Attorney Martin Verp said the cost of the land was fair. The trustees voted 5-2 to separate the land purchase referendum from the referendum for the school construction. The BOE was undecided as to whether the ballot questions of purchase of the property and building the school should go before voters at the same time. Later a developer turned over a 10-acre site in the Meadowbrook development to the BOE for a school site - but the school officials were told by the state that this parcel was not large enough for a school.Ī 23.61-acre piece of property in Midvale owned by the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad became available for purchase and seen as a feasible school site. In 1963 a referendum to purchase the Columbo land, a 14 acre parcel, was rejected by the voters. He said that moving ahead to build one could wait no longer.Ī search for property for the site of a new school had gone on for a number of years. Parent spokesperson Leroy Van Kirk noted that construction of a new school had been in the planning stage for several years. In 1967 I was at a school board meeting and heard parents express anxiety over the lack of progress in getting more classrooms for the fast-growing student population. They expected that by the end of the 1973-74 school year the total school enrollment in kindergarten through eighth grade would approach 2,300 students. Student enrollment had increased by 51 students over the previous year.ĭistrict officials anticipated that more than 150 students would enter school in the district before the end of the year. The 23 available classrooms had 30 or more children and more were enrolling daily. With 75 or more of the proposed new homes already built and occupied in 1969 enrollment in the two existing schools increased substantially. The search for available property for a new school was underway for some time. The Board of Education (BOE) and the people of the borough struggled with the knowledge that a new school had to be built – but they knew too that it also had to be affordable for the burdened taxpayers. Getting the school built came after some anxious and difficult decision-making. Wanaque School, built 45 years ago, opened in 1972. An addition was put onto the Haskell School in 1954 and there was a second addition in 1964.
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