The Trenton Times published the following article on March 5, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton groups to lobby for state funding to repair Trenton Central High School

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on March 05, 2013 at 8:10 AM

TRENTON — Parents, teachers and community activists will continue to demand state funding to fix crumbling schools, including Trenton Central High School, at a protest tomorrow at the monthly Schools Development Authority meeting.

Several Trenton groups are expected to attend to lobby for immediate repairs and renovations to TCHS, where parents, teachers and students have been waiting for more than a decade on once-promised state funding for an overhaul of the aging high school.

“We’re still looking for movement,” said Taiwanda Terry-Wilson, a member of the Better Plan for Trenton High School group. “The only thing the SDA has successfully done is toured through the building and extended the time frame to get work done.”

Led by the Healthy Schools Now! Campaign, groups like a Better Plan for Trenton High School, Team Trenton and the Never Give Up Organization, are expected to join teachers unions from Newark and Paterson, Save Our Schools NJ, the Oranges and Maplewood NAACP and other statewide groups tomorrow to put pressure on the SDA, the state’s school construction agency, to release money for urgent repairs for schools battling leaking roofs, mold in classrooms and faulty electrical wiring.

“We know people across the state are experiencing the same thing we are in urban districts,” Terry-Wilson said. “State officials pride themselves on saying, ‘Well, Trenton High isn’t the worst thing we’ve seen’.”

The district and residents have been fighting to replace or renovate TCHS for years. The 80-year-old school has problems with mold and asbestos, a leaking roof worsened by Hurricane Sandy, ventilation problems, floors warped by water damage and classroom ceilings that rain plaster on students and teachers.

A state-approved plan to build a new high school stalled out around 2000 and another plan to replace the school in 2008 led to a drawn-out fight over whether building a new school or renovating it was the best option. Last year, the state identified $13.3 million for at least 18 badly needed repair projects at the school, but that money and the accompanying repairs have yet to materialize.

Last June, the district’s Facility Advisory Board unveiled major renovation plans for the high school that would in effect gut the existing structure and double square footage through renovations and classroom additions, making TCHS into a modern, practically new school. Area legislators, school board members and parents have continued to meet with the SDA about both the emergency repairs and the proposed renovation, but school officials said those talks continue to drag on with no clear resolution.

“We, frankly, are very frustrated with the lack of progress,” Superintendent Francisco Duran said at a school board meeting last month where he called on parents and staff members to attend tomorrow’s SDA meeting.

“We’ve been working very diligently on this for many years, those of you in the community know, and we are still without an acceptable building,” Duran said. “We met three times with the SDA and I’m still not satisfied with the progress and I’m still not satisfied with the slow pace. We need more of you to help us out.”

Tomorrow’s demonstration will take place from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in front of the SDA offices at 1 West State St. in Trenton.