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Schools

Superintendent Reacts To Building of New School

Long Branch School Superintendent Joseph Ferraina says new school could be built by 2013.

Long Branch Schools Superintendent Joseph M. Ferraina was delighted with the call from Trenton he received at 1:30 p.m. Monday.

His dream to build a new school, the George L. Catrambone Elementary School on the site of where the Elberon School had been, was realized with an announcement by the state. That made his day.

“It was a long time coming, a long delay," Ferraina said. "Now the direction is to move ahead."

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Ferraina said the school could be built within the next three years.

"By 2013 – maybe January, maybe June, we will have a much needed new elementary school in the city,” Ferraina said.  

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He said a new administration will be in place when it comes about. Ferraina is retiring this year.

“My retirement plans were based on the new school being here when I did," he said. "It will be the new superintendent, the board of education, the administrative staff, and the teachers and student who will see the doors open. But I will be there cheering, and I won’t have to wait until I am 99 to see it."

The School Development Authority (SDA) was revamped by Gov. Chris Christie just as the old Elberon School was being torn down and plans for the new school moved toward implementation.

The “hold” by the state SDA allowed Christie to set up a review by the SDA and the Department of Education to conduct a comprehensive study of how construction decisions were made. He also made the decision to appoint the new SDA CEO, Marc Larkins, in January.

The study generated new decision criteria focused on proper and efficient use of public funds. Funding will be provided through prioritization of projects based needs of students and communities across the state. 

The revised SDA approach does away with the requirement that every SDA district gets a project, evaluated properly or not, the governor said. All projects accepted will prioritized based on the SDA Capital Program, not just going ahead with a grocery list of 52 projects, a past approach, the SDA has said.

The selected priorities for 2011 include 10 projects throughout the state; 9 of the 10 are for elementary schools. Four of the ten are in two municipalities – two schools each, and all four are elementary schools.

The SDA will be looking for costs-saving opportunities in planning, designing and implementation steps for the projects as they go about the prioritization function. Teams of experts representing the various disciplines involved in selection and construction will optimize the process.  Opportunities for duplication of steps will be sought, in order to avoid unnecessary design, from school to school, for example. Reuse of an existing design will be looked into on a case-by-case basis.

Ferraina said that principle – a cost-saving measure – was used by his planning team for the Long Branch schools, when the Anastasia School and the new Gregory School were built alike. It meant saving unneeded work, and bringing savings to taxpayers.  Even in that instance they needed to be redesigned to meet the requirement set forth by the old SDA rules, Ferraina said.

He said there is, “no reason to have different school plans for each elementary school."

"We incurred double architectural costs to satisfy Procurements," Ferraina said. "That was costly, inefficient, and with no better outcome.”

He said he was impressed with Larkins and the SDA approach.

“He is knowledgeable and is focused on reduced costs, improving quality and adding controls to keep project total costs in line," Ferraina said. "And he based his decision on the data from his reliable source, the Department of Education, and not less accurate sources.”

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