A Town Hall-style meeting has been set for Feb. 4 to explain the Lawrence Township Public Schools’ proposed $98.9 million bond referendum for improvements and expansions to the Lawrence Middle School.
The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be held at the Lawrence Middle School at 2455 Princeton Pike. It will last about two hours.
At the meeting, attendees will learn more about the referendum and its impact on the community. They may ask questions and share ideas, and connect with school district leaders and other community members at the session.
The proposed bond referendum will be put to a vote March 11. The goal is to expand the middle school, creating enough room to allow sixth-graders to be relocated from the Lawrence Intermediate School.
A two-story classroom addition for the sixth-graders will be built on the north side of the school, along with overall theater and cafeteria improvements. Safety and security improvements are included in the bond referendum.
There will be expanded parking so Lawrence High School students do not have to park on the street. A new multi-sport athletic field is planned on the Lawrence High School campus.
The bond referendum is being driven in part by plans to reconfigure the grade level distributions across the district. The grade distributions will be revised to create an upper elementary school and a middle school, officials said.
The proposal calls for the four elementary schools to be transformed into pre-Kindergarten through second grade schools. Grades 3-5 would be housed at the Lawrence Intermediate School, which would become an upper elementary school.
Grades 6-8 would be located at the expanded Lawrence Middle School. Students in grades 9-12 would continue to attend Lawrence High School.
If voters approve the bond referendum, the State of New Jersey will pick up part of the tab for debt service. The state will give $9 million in state aid to the school district.
In addition, the school district is contributing $4 million toward the bond referendum from its capital reserve account, so the total amount to be borrowed is $94.9 million. The tax impact is $328 per year for a house assessed at the township average of $285,000.
