$5.6M School Addition Project Underway In Freehold District

FREEHOLD, NJ — The Freehold school district has begun a $5.6 million construction project at the Park Avenue Complex, building an addition in front of the Park Avenue Elementary School, school officials said, using primarily federal funds with no additional bonding required.

Extending toward Route 33, the new addition will have more than 12,135 square feet of instructional space to include seven regular classrooms, six small-group classrooms, office space, an intermediate distribution frame closet and student and staff lavatory facilities, said Interim Superintendent Dr. Rocco Tomazic.

Three of the regular classrooms will have mobile walls to allow for dividing each regular classroom into two small-group instruction classrooms, if necessary.

“We are very pleased to initiate this construction project,” said Paul Jensen, president of the Freehold Borough Board of Education. “The district has had significant challenges in the past to provide the proper amount of classroom space for our students. This project will allow us to finish the job without burdening our taxpayers.”

The overall project came in at a bid of $5,645,000. The district plans to use $5,444,174 of its federal allocation under the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds toward the project. The remaining $200,826 of the project will come from the district’s capital reserve account, Tomazic said.

No bonds will be issued and no debt will be incurred because of the project. The project
is expected to be completed by Oct. 1, 2024, he said.

The design of the project was by Remington & Vernick Engineers of Cherry Hill, and they are also supervising construction. The general contractor on the project is Vanas Construction Co. Inc., Bogota.

Tomazic said the additional instructional space will provide the district greater flexibility in the years to come, securing the district’s future facility needs.

“This project will bring the district into alignment with the facilities needed to provide a New Jersey constitutionally guaranteed thorough and efficient education to our students,” Tomazic said. “The innovative use of available federal funds, dedicated to this critical aspect of our district operations, prioritizes the long-term needs of our students.”

Freehold Borough currently serves 1,619 students, pre-kindergarten to Grade 8. Freehold students in the public school system graduate to attend high school either in the Freehold Regional High School District or in programs in the Monmouth Country Vocational Technical School District.

Asia Michael has been named as the next superintendent of schools for the Freehold Borough District, the Board of Education announced in September.

Michael, currently the superintendent of the Southampton Township School District in Burlington County, will begin her new post in Freehold on Dec. 11.

Michael will take over duties from Tomazic, the former longtime school superintendent who returned from retirement to serve as interim superintendent since July 1, after the resignation of Superintendent Joseph Howe.