Dear Community Members,

Thank you! We are so grateful for all of the effort that you as a community have put into the Brookside Redevelopment Project. When we began the community engagement effort in the development of this project, we were focused on developing an understanding of how the community felt about a potential capital project. We wanted to know what your questions were and felt as though our next steps would be better developed, defined and eventually delivered if they were shaped by the community.

We asked and you answered. The community forums have been well attended and the various surveys have had a high response rate. As always, your feedback was reflective, thoughtful and helped us think differently about a potential project. We are now better positioned to consider our next steps in the process. 

We are excited to share with you that we are moving the process forward in different ways.

Please note:

• At this point in time, we are NOT planning on proposing the Brookside project as it has been presented this year. There will not be a proposed Brookside project on the ballot this May.
• We are still committed to the eventual implementation of Full-Day Kindergarten and the benefits it provides, while also addressing our capital needs throughout the District. 
• Our initial concerns about total cost and impact to both the individual taxpayer and the community have only grown. 
• When the project began, we started with certain assumptions about what type of project made the most sense. Community feedback has helped us remove some of those barriers and think differently about the initial parameters. 
• We are eager to continue considering additional options that take into account facility master planning needs throughout the District.
• State aid that we would have anticipated is currently projected to be far lower than our most conservative estimates. As we work toward solutions in the development of next year's budget, it is prudent to delay our planning for this type of project until there is more certainty in state funding.

Once again, thank you for your feedback. Your participation in the process is exactly what we had hoped for and will be essential as we continue to discuss the best strategies for addressing our building and instructional needs in the future. We will keep you posted as we continue to discuss next steps and hope that you will continue to provide us with feedback in the process.

Sincerely,

Kevin C. McGowan, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools                                                                            

Mark Kokanovich
President, Board of Education

Julene Gilbert           
Vice President, Board of Education

Andrea Costanza
Member, Board of Education

Larry Davis    
Member, Board of Education                                                                         

Karen Hatch
Member, Board of Education

Marvin Sachs, Ed.D.     
Member, Board of Education

Martha Sciremammano
Member, Board of Education