FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•    While new students are projected from housing developments proposed in Livingston, the birth rate at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in declining. The ages of students new to Livingston will be spread out among all grade levels. There is ample space for new students in the middle schools and high school.

•    The District intends to educate more students with special needs in Livingston Public Schools. However, those newly created programs will be introduced as need, space and resources for all related services, including teaching staff, allows.

We just finished construction at the elementary schools. Why wasn’t this work done then?

 

 

In 2009, the United States was going through the worse of its economic times and the federal government earmarked some stimulus funds for school improvements. The funds being offered had restrictions; they could only be used for energy improvements and/or air quality improvements within the classroom.  LPS received 40 cents on a dollar in state funding so the scope of the project stayed within the energy improvement guidelines. Solar panels and roof were added to eight schools, as was  air conditioning and other temperature controls units.

We could not have built new classrooms under that grant at that time. The state funding assistance could not be used for any other school improvements/construction. Therefore addressing capacity issues was not an option..

Why wasn’t the ADA work part of the LHS referendum?

 

 

 

 

Yes.

How many students attend Livingston Public Schools currently?  How many students will the new schools accommodate?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Developers cannot be impeded by impact fees in the state of New Jersey.

What is the plan for Special Education?

We have been serving students with learning disabilities in Livingston Public Schools for many years, but our goal is to further expand the number of who attend school in our own community.

New Jersey is ranked as last and the  50th state in the nation for sending the most students out-of-district for special education placement. And Livingston is at the high end even for New Jersey. LPS currently  sends approximately 130 students to private and public settings for special education placements. Millburn, with the same similar enrollment for instance, sends out just 50  In fact, we send some of the LPS students to Millburn for special education.

 

 

New programs already created serve children on the autism spectrum in Pre-K and provide social/emotional support services for preteens. The District’s Strategic Plan calls for increasing the number and scope of the in-district programs special education

With additional space, the District would continue to create new special education programs and try to retain newly identified special education students. We also hope that current children and their parents placed out-of-district will view that these new programs are as good, if not better, than their current placement and an attractive alternative to reducing long bus rides to their out-of-district school. No current out-of-district child will be forced into a LPS program.

Is there a cost savings for educating more special education students in-district?

While special education costs continue to raise, the real savings for educating more special ed students in Livingston Public School will be realized in large savings from out-of-district transportation costs and small savings in tuition charges for out-of-district placements – anticipated as much as $750,000 a year.

Tuition now paid out will instead be invested in LPS’s own special education programs, including staffing, equipment, and other special considerations.

LPS currently has used regular classrooms for art and music instruction.  What’s so bad about freeing up the art and music classrooms for new students and putting those classes on a cart?

During the worse times, we have no other choice but to put elementary art or music on a cart to capture a classroom. The teacher literally gets an AV cart that you used to put an overhead projector on, and they stack a bunch of stuff, and they roll from classroom to classroom.

What it means is that you’re limited by what a cart can hold. Your teacher is a nomad rolling from room to room to room.

What is best in elementary education is to have dedicated art rooms, music rooms, where children come for instruction. In music, instruments, drums and guitars, are around the wall. The teacher has full access to sound equipment, to pianos, to autoharps. The same thing in art. When you see any public education art room, it’s stacked to the ceiling with supplies. We might do charcoal today. We might do 3-dimensional clay tomorrow. We might use a kiln. Art on a cart is mostly paper and pencil.

So do we limit children’s choices by crowding schools and taking our specials out of their rooms so they can be used for classrooms? Yes, it really does hurt elementary education.

 

 

In its 25-year analysis, the board identified elementary and middle school HVAC in gymnasiums as another area for improvement. Future plans call for HVAC improvements at all middle school and elementary school gyms from funding that’s to come out of the capital improvement budget. It is anticipated that upgrades at each gym will cost about $750,000 per gym with the work spread throughout the schools over a series of year.

Riker Hill and Mt. Pleasant Elementary were identified as needing an additional gymnasiums to provide equity of resources across all six elementary schools.  Those two gymnasiums are anticipated to cost about $6.5 million. There are no plans at this time for that work.

If this referendum is approved, what are future construction projects we expect to have from now to the year 2037?

 

• Monmouth Court/Alternative High School Modifications • Shared solution with Township, project under way. Cost to LPS is $2 million.
• Elementary School Classrooms
 • Referendum under consideration. Cost $15.1 million.
• LHS ADA compliance 
• Referendum under consideration. Cost $3.1 million.
• HVAC for all Middle School/Elementary School Gyms • Future Capital Improvement Budgets. Cost anticipated at $750,000 per gym.
• Central Office Energy and ADA compliance • $1.5 million included in 2013 and 2014 Capital Improvement Budgets.
• Elementary School Gym Equity, Riker Hill and Mt. Pleasant. Future Capital Improvement Budgets; cost anticipated about $6.5 million.

 

We did a number of upgrades and construction to many if not all of the elementary schools within the last 5-10 years. Will the schools have to be revamped again in a few years? And if there are still needed changes, why not do it all now?

The proposed capacity construction is much different than the renovation construction at the elementary schools during the summer of 2010 and into the start of school that fall. The state funded 40 cents of every dollar spent, but the money could only be used solar panels, new roofs, adding air conditioning and other temperature controls. We could not have built new classrooms with the funding available at that time.

Fourteen years ago, the voters approved a referendum that added capacity at the elementary schools. At the time, LPS schools were overcrowded. Music and computer classes were held on carts; small group instruction was held in unauthorized areas, sometimes in the hallway; classes were housed in trailers. Based on demographic studies at that time, we built what was needed to relieve an immediate crisis.

In November 2011, the Board of Education began a yearlong process to examine the District’s long-term facility needs. The LPS Facility Assessment 2012-2037 identifies emergent needs for elementary capacity and 100 percent ADA compliance.

In its 25-year analysis, the board identified elementary gymnasiums as another area for improvement. Future plans call for HVAC improvements at all middle school and elementary school gyms from funding that’s to come out of the capital improvement budget. It is anticipated that upgrades at each gym will cost about $750,000 per gym with the work spread throughout the schools over a series of year. Improvements to construct new gyms at Riker Hill and Mt. Pleasant Elementary are anticipated to cost about $6.5 million. There are no plans at this time for that work.

There is adequate space at the middle schools and high school. The Board of Education determined that 14 additional classrooms in the elementary schools will serve the immediate needs to lessen class size and allow more special education students to attend Livingston Public Schools, rather than out-of-district placements. The architect’s plan approved by the Board would allow additional classroom space at Hillside Elementary School. The addition is designed for a future second floor.

Other than the gym equity identified need, all of the remaining projects seen in the next 25 years can be handled in the yearly capital improvement projects.  The unknown factor for future referendums is the birth rate which can’t be predicted beyond five years.