PROCESS

The Road to Referendum has been an incremental and thorough process. It began in December 2019 with a Strategic Planning Committee. After a pandemic pause, the Board of Education resumed its deliberate and thorough research to address the long-discussed challenge of GW’s age and ailing state. That committee’s research included a demographic study for enrollment projections, discussions with architects and other advisers, and parent information sessions that concluded with an opinion survey. In July 2022, the Board voted to move another step forward by sending plans to the state Department of Education for intense review. 

An option that was not considered was to do nothing. The learning environment of the current GW building is small and outdated. Inefficient mechanical systems strain the operating budget. The exterior of GW has deteriorated beyond major repair. Hillsdale’s investment in its students and its property is at risk.

The process of getting to Option 1 – the construction of a new school that is on the March 14 ballot – involved exploration of Options 2, 3 and 4. The label “Option 1” was not applied at the start of this process. We sought the architect’s guidance on renovating George White to bring it up to financial efficiency, sound building envelope, and educational standards. The outlier at the time was to build a new school, and that emerged as the leading option.

Option 2 – Renovate and add to the current school, including a new gymnasium. Students would be displaced from the building and learning would occur in temporary trailers for about two years. This option included plans to update the current field space.

Option 3 – Renovate and add to the current school while leaving the current gymnasium intact. Students would learn in temporary trailers for about two years. This option included plans to update the current field space.

Option 4 – Only renovate the current school, with no changes in the size of classrooms or physical footprint. Students would learn in temporary trailers during renovations for about two years. This option did not include plans to update the current field space.

While the March 14 bond proposal for Hillsdale does not call for the use of trailers – rather, instruction would take place in the existing school while a new school is built – if Hillsdale’s Board of Education had proposed renovating GW instead, that concept plan involved: 

• Students and staff relocating to trailers for a minimum of two years. 

• Students and the community losing access to the gymnasium and cafetorium space, which would diminish the child/resident experience inside and outside the school day. 

• The costs for those temporary facilities equaling more than $3.7 million (at 2021’s estimates) in addition to building renovation/expansion. 

The architect working with Hillsdale is also conducting the Waldwick project. Di Cara Rubino Architects offered some insight.

While Waldwick High School, for example, undergoes renovations, only one section of the building is closed for renovation and is not available for instruction. Those affected students meet temporarily in trailers. After that area of renovations is complete, the process repeats with another section and another group of students. During this “leapfrog style” renovation process, the building remains intact. 

In Hillsdale, the concept plan for renovations called for the complete closure of GW for student instruction. Necessary renovations are more extensive than those for Waldwick HS, involving the HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems that feed the entire building; removal/replacement of walls, flooring and ceilings; and abatement of asbestos. The building could not be occupied during this time, and so all of GW’s 500 students would attend classes in trailers for a period expected to last as long as two years.

Lyndhurst residents are paying higher property taxes as a result of school improvements and construction – for both the school district tax rate and the township tax rate. Voters in 2016 approved the school district's bond referendum for $19.9 million to fund upgrades and additions, with a projected payoff of $96 per year over 35 years for the average home. In tandem with that plan, the separate entity of Lyndhurst Township also issued about $50 million in bonds to build a new middle school. Voter approval was not required for the township to sell bonds (just like it isn’t required for the Borough of Hillsdale to sell bonds), but the taxpayers of Lyndhurst Township are paying off that bond. You can read about it here. 

Discussions of GW's challenges have happened for many years as learning styles evolved and mechanical systems aged. It was easier to patch and repair, to modify and make do without addressing the root cause of a school designed for and built in the 1920s. Through a series of short-term leadership stints, the real problem was pushed into the future like a can kicked further down the road. Proposing the construction of a new school, with the cost and logistics to make it happen, required another catalyst for change. Rising enrollment brought Hillsdale to that point. GW is not financially efficient and not large enough, and it cannot be reasonably renovated to meet those needs. The Board of Education believes Hillsdale students and the community deserve a solution to this long-standing challenge. In a nutshell: The district is out of space, out of date and out of time where GW School is concerned.

The Board of Education thoughtfully considered the costs and process of salvaging GW. Significant renovation and some space additions could bring it closer to modern educational standards. However, the "real feel" tax impact of that undertaking was estimated at $72 per month including an estimate for state aid – compared to the $95 per month cost of building a new school. The process of renovation would have required that students and staff relocate to modular trailers for a minimum of two years. Additionally, students and the community would lose access to the gymnasium and cafetorium space, which would diminish the child/resident experience inside and outside the school day. At 2021’s estimates, those temporary facilities would have cost more than $3.7 million in addition to building renovation/expansion.

Hillsdale Public Schools offered three info sessions to parents in Spring of 2022. As parents of current and future GW students, they came to the discussion with a particular perspective of current conditions and the impact they have on learning. After hearing about the challenges facing GW and the options for addressing them, those parents were surveyed to measure their opinions of the four options. More than 89% of that audience said construction of a new middle school was the best solution.

The Borough of Hillsdale is in a growth phase as residential developments are proposed, planned and built. The forecast includes a major redevelopment plan that could bring more than 200 housing units to the Patterson Street area. Hillsdale Public Schools hired an independent demographer early in 2022 to research factors that contribute to student enrollment levels, from birth rates to housing turnover. GW is cramped now, and district-wide there was a surge in new student enrollment in Summer 2022. The demographic report projected that the space crunch might ease just a little over the next three to five years. After that, enrollment is likely to rise due to the projected rate of housing turnover: when empty-nesters move away and families with school-aged children take their place. That timing aligns with the forecast for the opening of a new middle school, if voters approve the proposal on the March 14 ballot.