South Hunterdon School District Celebrates Ribbon Cutting for Renovation of Elementary School

LAMBERTVILLE – It was a small sign, but it announced a big change – “Pervious surface.”

It meant that the sidewalk where the Aug. 15 ribbon cutting ceremony for the renovated South Hunterdon Regional Elementary School was held would allow water to filter back into the ground, rather than run off into the street.

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Such small improvements are increasingly important in a time when storms are growing in intensity, and Lambertville, like many Hunterdon County towns, was  devastated by Hurricane Ida in 2021.

What bubbled on that sidewalk under sunny skies was not water seeping into the ground, but the excitement of possibility, as district officials were unveiling a newly renovated school.

The pervious surface was one of the steps taken to “future proof” the school, said Kate Bonardi, a senior designer with USA Architects, the firm that designed the renovations.

The school was renovated by Scozzari Builders Inc.

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Future proofing means, Bonardi said, that they took a 1960s school building with “good bones” and created a 21st century learning space.

Students will get their first crack at the new facility when school opens Sept 3.

Open house events are scheduled for 1 p.m. Aug. 22 and 9 a.m. Aug. 24.

For superintendent Anthony Suozzo, the ceremony marked the fulfillment of a two-year goal fraught with opposition and temporary setbacks.

In the end, he said, the district has a school that will better meet the needs of its students with improved facilities, education spaces, and expanded space for pre-kindergarten students and kindergarten classes.

The renovated school will serve students in pre-kindergarten to grade four from all the district’s towns, Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell.

The elementary school renovation is coupled with the ongoing construction of a new middle school for grades five to eight in West Amwell, adjacent to the  district’s regional high school.

Suozzo said the middle school should be completed in March 2025, and be ready for occupancy in September 2025.

The total project cost was $33.4 million, with the school district contributing $26.7 million and the State of New Jersey giving $6.7 million.

The project included the demolition of the West Amwell Elementary School, which has been deemed inadequate for a modern education.

A study taken before the 2021 referendum that approved the project found both the former Lambertville Elementary School, built in 1968, (now the regional elementary school), and the West Amwell school unsuitable because of a lack of a library, common areas, inadequate classroom configuration, lack of ADA compliant bathrooms and both schools needing new HVAC systems, lighting and  emergency and safety upgrades.

The West Amwell School, built in 1958, was also served by outside trailers, including one for music classes, and had no heat in the hallways.

The regional elementary school now includes redesigned classrooms, ADA complaint bathrooms, a new library and common spaces that are designed to be used by the public, plus LED lighting and new security and safety systems.

Lauren Braun-Strumfels, a former school board member who served on the curriculum committee during planning for the new building, said the addition of flexible classrooms, and the development of the other new spaces like the media center/library and the public access areas were vital to the project, and increased the ability to add curriculum needed to meet educational demands in the future.

It’s not just the building, but the educational opportunities for the students that are the ways the school was “future proofed,” she said.

Braun-Strumfels was touring the building with her husband, Kyle Strumfels, and  their children, Finley, who will start third grade in the new school, and Dahlia, a sixth grader who will attend the new middle school next year.

A tour of the school revealed bright hallways, open classrooms, a makers room for art and other projects with wide tables and storage, a new media center/library, a new gymnasium/cafeteria waiting for hungry kids or basketball players and a  community room with outside access so it could be used separately from the school.

It was shiny, untouched, a space of possibility.

It has that new school smell.

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