The WW-P School district initiated a total of 23 construction projects over the summer and, despite delays caused by the stormy weather, most of them are nearing completion and classes opened as planned.
Reporting at the school board’s first meeting of the school year on September 13, Superintendent Victoria Kniewel outlined the projects, all of which are part of the district’s long-range facilities plan as required by the state. The work includes lighting and roof projects at High School South, Village, Dutch Neck, Wicoff, and Community Middle School, as well as roofing at Millstone. The inclement weather caused some delays to completion of roof work. Most of those roofing projects have continued into the new school year.
“If you drive past some of the schools you can see that some of the roofing projects are still underway,” Kniewel said.
Separate lighting projects were done at High School North, Grover Middle School, and Town Center.
New carpet was installed at High School South, Village, Millstone River, and Community. Maurice Hawk has an updated playground, and boilers at Hawk and Wicoff were replaced. Sound and clock systems at High School North and Millstone River were updated.
Kniewel said $1 million was set aside in the district’s budget for the specific projects she presented.
“The way we were able to do so many projects was to use the capital reserve as the local share so that we could apply for state money and bring this up for the third round ROD (regular operating district) grant opportunity,” she said.
Kniewel singled out the innovative work done to revamp the commons at High School South, where the lighting was redone in 2010 and new carpeting was installed and walls were painted over the summer.
“It gives such a beautiful space to the school. Not only is it beautiful but we just received $10,240 from the New Jersey Clean Energy Office as part of their incentive program for energy efficiency,” she said.
