PRINCETON: School board explores size, scope of bond referendum

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton Board of Education is exploring the possibility of breaking up John Witherspoon Middle School and building a new school for fifth and sixth-graders at the site of Old Valley Road School, a top school official said Monday.
The option is one of three that an architectural firm is looking at for the school board, which is poised this summer to decide the size and scope of a bond referendum, board president Patrick Sullivan said by phone. Other possibilities include putting additions onto buildings, mainly at Princeton High School, and acquiring the Westminster Choir College campus for what Sullivan called "potential high school extensions."
Board members will have to discuss the options and their respective costs and benefits, Sullivan said. He left open the door for the board doing a combination of building additions and demolishing Valley Road School.
At the moment, Witherspoon serves students from grades six to eight, but one scenario the district is exploring is to demolish the Valley Road building and construct a school for students in grades five and six, he said. Such an arrangement would take enrollment pressure off the lower schools.
Sullivan said the referendum – likely to go before voters later this year or in early 2018 – is being driven by enrollment increases the district has experienced and the likelihood of adding more students in the coming years as a result of the town’s affordable housing settlement, which is expected to increase residential development to the community.
As for other options, the district also has kept its eye on acquiring the campus of Rider University’s Westminster Choir College, a more than 20-acre property contiguous with the high school and the middle school.  Rider officials are looking find a buyer for the music school, to keep Westminster in Princeton.
A group of Westminster alumni and others have vowed to sue if Rider tries to sell the campus for a development or if the school board buys it for a public school.
"I think there is very little community interest in turning this elite, vaunted institution into a high school cafeteria or a place for adult education," said Bruce I. Afran, attorney for the Coalition to Save Westminster Choir College in Princeton, at a recent press conference.
But the threat of getting sued will not scare off the school board.
"Lawsuits are a fact of life," said Sullivan, a graduate of New York University School of Law. "We won’t be intimidated by threats of lawsuits."
Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane could not be reached for comment.