The Trenton Times published the following article on March 6, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Students, parents describe Trenton Central HS conditions as ‘severe state of disrepair’ to state SDA

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on March 06, 2013 at 3:04 PM

TRENTON — Trenton parents, teachers and students implored the state Schools Development Authority to release funding and speed up repairs and extensive renovations at the 80-year-old Trenton Central High School.

At the SDA’s monthly meeting this morning, activists from school districts across the state — Trenton, Camden, Irvington, Gloucester City — demanded answers from the SDA on what they called the authority’s glacial pace when it came to funding and authorizing emergency repairs and replacing dilapidated school facilities with new buildings.

Trenton activists passed around photos and students and staff gave personal testimony on what they called “a school in a severe state of disrepair,” one plagued by plumbing problems, leaking ceilings, warped floors and mold.

“We have been promised and promised again,” said Trenton Education Association Naomi Johnson-Lafleur. “We have sat by as teachers for the last 15 years listening to promises. We want to know when will repairs be made or the school replaced. We have illnesses related to mold, roof leaks in many classrooms, plaster coming down, ceilings collapse every day. Another asbestos abatement needs to be done.”

The school district has been grappling with what to do with the deteriorating high school for more than a decade. Plans to build a new school were on the table in 2000 and again in 2009, but the latest $150 million plan was scrapped after disagreements arose within the Trenton community over whether to build a brand-new school or preserve and renovate the existing building and Gov. Chris Christie’s administration cut the number of new schools approved to be built.

The SDA last year agreed to fund major renovations at the high school, saying a brand-new high schools was not in the cards. In a list submitted to the authority, the district identified at least 18 badly needed repair projects at the school with a cost of more than $13 million.

“We don’t need more walk-throughs (by the SDA), we need you to have a team who has the authorization and the dollars to make these repairs that are desperately needed,” said Taiwanda Terry-Wilson, a member of the Better Plan for Trenton High School group.

In an interview after this morning’s meeting, SDA CEO Marc Larkins said the authority was moving forward with plans to fund a lengthy list of repairs at the high school and had met several times with school officials over the past two months to discuss plans for the high school. By the end of this month, a finalized scope of the work that needs to be done should be completed, he said.

“What we’re doing is planning repairs on a building that’s occupied and we have to phase it,” Larkins said. “Our approach right now is to do the exterior and make the building watertight and then do interior work. Once we got (Trenton’s educational) program approved in January we’ve had six or seven working group sessions in the last six or seven weeks and our goal is to have the scope finalized this month.”

Larkins said the next step would be hiring a design firm to plot the repairs, with the expectation that the design phase would be completed by the end of this year. After permits are secured, construction could then begin on the high school in phases, he said, allowing contractors to make the necessary repairs and renovations around the times school is in session.

Larkins said he didn’t want to estimate how much a full-scale renovation could cost and did not say how long the entire project could take.

“We are not working on a budget,” he said. “What we are trying to do right now is do what’s right for the building and support the district in the best way we can. I hesitate at this point to name a dollar figure.”

The SDA chief said he understood the impassioned pleas from parents and educators heard today, but said the school construction process can be a lengthy one.

“If people focus on the facts, this current administration had advanced more emergent projects than any before,” he said. “We’ve been competing and starting new emergent projects. I don’t think this administration or the creation of this board ever anticipated fixing every single problem in every single school, even in Abbot districts.”

Trenton Superintendent Francisco Duran, who said last month he was dissatisfied with the lack of progress at the high school, did not return a call for comment this afternoon.