Administrator: New school expected to open on time
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

The John I. Dawes Early Learning Center which will house all of the kindergarten pupils in the Manal-apan-Englishtown Regional School District will open on time in September.

Joseph Passiment, the business administrator for the school district which serves K-8 youngsters from Manalapan and Englishtown, provided that assessment to the News Transcript this week.

The early learning center has been constructed in front of the Clark Mills School, Gordons Corner Road, Manal-apan. The school is named for Dawes, who served as the attorney for the district's Board of Education for more than 40 years.

Passiment said there is no reason to suspect there will be a glitch in opening the school on time for the 2007-08 school year. He said construction will be completed in time for opening day in September.

In September 2006 a construction project at the Manalapan Englishtown Middle School (MEMS), Millhurst Road, Manalapan, was not completed on time for the first day of school. Instead, the district's seventh- and eighth-grade students attended classes in elementary schools for one week.

The MEMS construction project is currently the subject of litigation between the school district and the construction company. A different construction company built the early learning center.

Township Committeeman Anthony Gennaro announced at the committee's Aug. 8 meeting that he had been informed by Superintendent of Schools John Marciante that there might be an issue with a new access route being constructed at the early learning center, such that it might not be ready to accommodate traffic in time for the school's opening.

According to Gennaro, Marciante informed him that the discovery of an old natural gas line could delay the completion of the construction of the new access route at the school.

Asked about that particular issue, Passiment said the discovery of the gas line was nothing new and said it had been dealt with some time ago. He said there is nothing to indicate that the new access route at the early learning center will not be ready for the first day of school.