By Ron Leir
KEARNY –
If the folks at Kearny High School feel like they’re under siege, it’s completely understandable.
For the next three years, they’ll be facing an onslaught of ever-shifting construction crews and machines – rivaling the ever-present noise of overhead aircraft – that will be involved in easily the biggest makeover job the 87-year-old school has seen.
Some perspective: Since its opening in 1923, the high school has grown twice, getting an addition in 1940 at a cost of $400,000 and a second in 1974 for $5 million that yielded new music and art rooms, gym, locker rooms, classrooms and parking.
Now the Board of Education is entrusting a third revamping to Brockwell & Carrington Contractors Inc. of Towaco for nearly $40 million, underwritten by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the Federal Aviation Administration and state Department of Education.
By soundproofing and air-conditioning the building, the school hopes to thwart the daily distractions created by low-flying planes.
And, by building vertically in what is now essentially empty space – demolishing the old pool and old computer lab in the process – it aims to bolster its educational programs with new classrooms, added technology and a culinary arts curriculum.
“We’ll be cutting up the building into four sections to build up five stories to create additional classroom space,” explained Mark Bruscino, the district’s director of plant operations.
Alongside what will be the back wall of the atrium (east, facing Davis Ave.), four levels of new classrooms will be stacked, and along the front wall (west, facing Devon St.) will be a 2-level, glass-in culinary arts kitchen/dining hall.
Since construction will be ongoing inside the school, the district has decided the best way to minimize disruption is to relocate students and staff to temporary classroom trailers that will be parked on the lawn outside the main entrance on Devon St.
Last week, small mountains of dirt were piled on either side of the front courtyard. Stephen Williams, senior project manager for Brockwell & Carrington, explained the contractor was “stripping top soil” from the lawn to create foundations for those trailers.
Delivery is expected “within a month” from the supplier, GE/ModSpace. Each trailer will have its own A/C and bathroom, Williams said.
There’ll be 14 trailers, seven trailers on each side of the lawn and each designed to hold up to 25 students, Bruscino said. At full capacity, they would hold a total of about 400 – less than a quarter of the school’s enrollment 1,755.
“The work will be done in 10 stages,” Bruscino said, and students and teachers directly impacted by the construction work will move into the trailers at the onset of each phase of the work.
Then, for the next phase, another group of students and teachers will rotate through and so forth, he said.
The first phase was scheduled for the building’s northeast corner where Fred Khurt teaches auto mechanics to juniors and seniors, but district administrators said that plan may change unless they can find a way for special need students to access an elevator located near the auto mechanics shop.
“Every day is a new adventure,” said Principal Cynthia Baumgardner, who is settling in for her second year in the job.
And, she added, other “surprises” may well pop up as the work progresses. “This is an old building, and when they start knocking down walls, they don’t know what they’re going to find.”
What they’ve already rediscovered in the cavernous room that houses the school’s old swimming pool – abandoned some two decades ago – are two wall-mounted murals depicting aquatic themes. The murals are believed to date back more than 60 years.
For the most part, Bruscino said, phasing of the high school project “will be determined by the mechanicals – heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems – essential to the health and safety of the building’s occupants.”
Fire exits will be coordinated around the construction to ensure that everyone is adequately protected, he added.
According to the blueprints, the reconstructed first floor will house four new classrooms, additional computer labs, a faculty dining room, an expanded student cafeteria and a culinary arts “hot and cold laboratory” mini-school.
On the second floor will be five additional classrooms and four offices; on the third floor, six new classrooms, two offices and a small group-instruction area; on the fourth, six new classrooms, two offices, a group-instruction area, and the first level of an expanded library; and on the fifth, the library’s top level.
An open space “column” in the center of the construction will be topped by a skylight.
At its Sept. 19 meeting, the school board hired Epic Management Inc. of Piscataway as construction manager for $970,918, conditional on approval by the Port Authority and FAA. Epic would serve as an intermediary between the contractor and the district administrators, alerting the educators what to expect as the job advances.
Baumgardner said that once she is updated on the most current plans, she will spread the word to others in the school community at PTA meetings.
To expedite traffic flow within the school, Baumgardner said she’ll probably designate certain stairways for “up” and others for “down.”
“I have to be flexible to the needs of the construction,” she said, “but my top priority is keeping students and staff safe and ensuring continuity of academic instruction. . . . My goal is to give the kids a full high school experience.”
And the end result, Baumgardner suggested, should be worth the aggravation to come. “This building has beautiful bones but it hasn’t been well maintained,” she said. “This project will give us air-conditioning, new windows, a culinary school, an atrium and, hopefully, the maintenance it needs to last into the future.”
In other developments at its last regular meeting, the school board hired Anthony P. Radano, a retired educator, as interim acting assistant superintendent at $525 a day pending a permanent replacement and also hired 11 elementary and high school teachers to fill vacancies created by retirements.
The board continues to search for a permanent chief schools administrator to replace Frank Digesere and has been interviewing candidates screened by its consultant, Leadership Advantage.
Radano, who began his career as an educator in 1970, served as principal of Hillsborough High School from 1985 to 2000. His most recent assignment, since retiring from full-time employment, was special services director for the Edison public school system.
