Preschool program to move to church building in Sept.

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer

CLARE MARIE CELANO The home of the Freehold Borough School District's preschool program beginning in September will be this building on the grounds of the First Presbyterian Church, West Main Street and Brinckerhoff Avenue. FREEHOLD - Little ones attending the Freehold Borough School District's preschool program in September will learn their ABCs in a location different from their predecessors.

The 4-year-olds who are enrolled in the program will be embarking on their preschool education in classrooms at the First Presbyterian Church, West Main Street and Brinckerhoff Avenue. The pupils will attend school in a building on the church grounds, which presently houses the church's preschool program.

The borough school district's preschool program is currently housed at the Freehold Learning Center elementary school, Dutch Lane Road.

School district officials said the need for additional space in the face of rising enrollment led them to rent nondistrict facilities for the preschool program.

Director of Special Programs Jim Cosulich said, "We simply could not pack those little ones into that [Freehold Learning Center] space another year."

The Board of Education approved the off-campus preschool program on April 24. The cost to the district will be $50,000 for the 2006-07 school year.

Interim Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth O'Connell said she visited the church's facility in March with Cosulich and interim Business Administrator Kenneth Sommerhalter.

According to O'Connell, four small rooms in the church building will be converted into two large instructional spaces.

Cosulich, another supervisor and a receptionist will also have their offices in the church building. He said making the move out of cramped district facilities will give them the space they need to do their jobs.

The reconfigured church facilities will allow the district to provide two morning and two afternoon classes, which should not exceed 20 pupils per class, according to O'Connell.

The present preschool program offers one morning and two afternoon classes with 24 or 25 children, something officials would rather not see.

O'Connell said the off-campus space for the preschool program would have been needed for the 2006-07 school year even if residents had approved a $7.8 million construction referendum that proposed creating more classroom space. That referendum was defeated in December and again on April 18.

Moving the preschool program out of the Freehold Learning Center will allow the school's art program to return to its own room. The space now being used for the preschool program will be used for special education classrooms.

Freehold Learning Center Principal Dennis Levinson said he would have preferred that the preschool program remain at his school, but said he knew the district was pressed for space and "this is the only program we can really move."