'Innovative' solution for crowding proposed
Wayne school board suggests moving grades
By: Philip DeVencentis
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
WAYNE - The school board has asked the district administration to examine the feasibility of moving fifth graders to middle school and eight graders to high school to partly solve an overcrowding issue that many expect to get worse in the coming years.
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The space crunch primarily affects the elementary schools, and parents are raising concerns about class sizes - including one situation that is beginning to stretch James Fallon School.
..... Trustees have also repeatedly expressed worries about new construction of apartments and how that may contribute to the problem.
..... Trustee M<ark Faber said at the most recent Board of Education meeting that relocating fifth graders and eighth graders could give the district the relief it needs, in terms of more room, without presenting too much of a hardship for families.
..... "Will it work? I don't now,' Faber said. "But I do know hat we don't have very many options."
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Faber asked the administration to look into the possibility and to report its findings at a future date. his proposal was backed by a 7-1 majority of the school board, with trustee Ryan Battershill casino the dissenting vote.
..... The timing for the analysis was wrong, Battershil said, adding that the administration led by new Schools Superintendent David Cittadino should be more focused on restaffing the central office.
..... "I voted no based on my support for Mr. Cittadino and the district," he said, need to go to build the district," he said.
..... Donald Pavlak Jr. the school board president, said he was in favor of the proposal. "There's only one way you're going to find a solution to the problems that we're beginning to see in class sizes," he said. "We need to start being innovative in what we're looking at."
..... Earlier in the same meeting, two parents of children enrolled at James Fallon said they were upset about class sizes in fourth grade there.
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The elementary school on Clifford Drive - named after the first known teacher in Wayne - has an unsettled past.
..... It first opened for the 1962 school year when enrollment was booming, but trustees closed it at the end of the 1979 school year when the district popularization began to slump.
..... then; in September 2000, it reopens when space was needed again.
.... The latest state data shows it had 370 students last year, [2024-2025] including 85 in third grade - this year's [2025-2026 fourth grade.
.... Lauren Kazmark, the assistant schools superintendent, said at the meeting that the fourth grade classes at James Fallon would have 28 tor 29 student. She said teachers' aides would be assigned to those rooms to provide extra help and that some pupils would be pulled out of the classes for mathematics and reading.