Overcrowding Continues For Nutley Students After 2018 Election

NUTLEY, NJ — Nutley’s teachers and students will continue to cram into trailers after voters denied them a proposed fix for school overcrowding in November’s General Election.

For years, officials in Nutley have lamented ballooning class sizes and cramped conditions in the district’s aging schools. Administrators have been forced to cope with limited space by creating classrooms in temporary trailers at Washington and Yantacaw elementary schools, as well as a patchwork of other space-saving measures throughout the district.

The issue of overcrowding is plainly evident at Washington Elementary, NorthJersey.com recently reported. (Read the full article here)

“The main office and principal’s office were moved to small nooks within the building to accommodate classrooms. The music room was moved to the teachers’ lounge for the same reason. Teachers now eat lunch at their desk. The staff of about 60 shares three adult, single-use restrooms. The auditorium’s small upstairs projection room doubles for guidance conferences. Two former storage rooms are used as learning areas for small student groups. Two classrooms host multiple resource groups at a time. In one room, filing cabinets are used as partitions to separate English as a second language, basic skills, speech and occupational therapy students. Outside, two trailers that accommodate the four sixth-grade classes — 16 percent of the school’s population — occupy a blacktop playground, eliminating a space for games and exercise.”

As part of the 2018 General Election in November, Nutley residents got the chance to vote on a $67 million series of school construction projects which would have combatted overcrowding with 37 new classrooms and three multipurpose rooms at Nutley High School, John H. Walker Middle School, Washington Elementary School and Yantacaw Elementary School.

The proposed project would have eliminated the need for trailers and solved overcrowding in the Nutley Public School District for 15 to 20 years, supporters of the plan said. It would also have raised the average local homeowner's school taxes by $394 a year.

Voters defeated the two-part referendum by a narrow margin. (See the election results here)

The project was originally presented as a single, $70 million package in 2017, which voters rejected 2,380 to 1,879.

• See related article: Nutley Voters Say 'No' To $70M School Bond Issue

As part of their push to get approval for the most recent referendums, a grassroots group of community activists called Say Yes To Nutley said that if voters shot them down, several negative consequences would follow.

“Right now, our class sizes throughout the district have risen above best practices and district guidelines,” the group warned. “In grades K to 2, classes are at 21 and 22 students; grades 3 and 4 are at 24 or 25, and grades 5 and 6 are at 30.”

Here’s what the group predicted would happen as far as the trailer situation:

“The trailers at Yantacaw and Washington will remain, with a second story added to one Washington trailer by September 2019. Spring Garden will receive a double-decker trailer for the next school year, beginning in September 2019. New school registrants may need to attend a school other than their home/neighborhood school. This would continue, even with increased class size. Redistricting at the elementary schools will be needed and our academics will suffer at all levels.”

• See related article: Cure For Nutley's Overcrowded Classrooms? $394 A Year, Group Says

Despite the cost of the proposed project, the stopgap measure of using trailers is also costing taxpayers some serious moolah, School Superintendent Julie Glazer told NorthJersey.com.

According to Glazer:

“The last two trailers installed at Washington in 2016 cost a total of $777,575, including expenses to retrofit it for electric, heating and air conditioning, plumbing and communications… Yantacaw’s third trailer, which was installed in 2016, cost $287,180 including the retrofits.”

Below: CBS video taken after Nutley voters rejected the 2017 spending plan

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Photo: YouTube / CBS New York