East Brunswick Schools Look To Reconfigure Grades, Add Classrooms

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — Major changes are coming to East Brunswick Public Schools.

The district has proposed a plan to reconfigure grade levels and add around 30 or more classrooms to Churchill Junior High School.

Under the new plan beginning September 2022, elementary schools will house grades preK – 4; grades 5-6 will move to Hammarskjold Middle school and grades 7 – 9 will go to Churchill Junior. Students in grades 10 –12 will continue to go to East Brunswick High School, according to the proposed plan.

The district said the plan was in response to the projected increase in students in the next three years.

Superintendent Victor Valeski held an interactive forum on the topic with parents and guardians on Tuesday.

“As we plan this, we know there’s an impact on children,” Valeski said.

“Did I or the Board consider the pandemic impact on this proposal? We certainly did. We want to take steps to make sure the transition for our students is as seamless as possible.”

When Valeski presented the plan to the Board of Education on April 8, he said the implementation will happen within a “reasonable time frame,” and the focus will be on efficiency and cost.

“This is surrounded by three distinct priorities- to build sustainable elementary capacity in our elementary schools, focus on equity across elementary schools, and to contain costs to maximize tax impacts on township residents,” Valeski said.

Building the temporary classroom units (TCU) at Churchill will be funded through the school district’s budget.

At the meeting, parents asked the district why a new school wasn’t being built in place of adding classrooms to the existing buildings.

“To build a new elementary school we need land,” said Valeski. “We actually spent an entire year looking for land in East Brunswick and there’s no land to be had.”

Valeski said it made more sense to build in the existing elementary school buildings.

EBPS said they do not anticipate the need to hire additional teachers, as the restructuring will result in the realignment of current teachers to the new model.

Details on the restructuring plan can be found here.

The entire public forum is recorded and available online. Click here.

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