08/29/2007
Stockton students to 'Go Green'
By: Mae Rhine , Managing Editor

Teacher Brian Horan works with Stockton Public School
students, from left, 7-year-old Malory Brown,
9-year-old Darrell Kreider and 11-year-old
Roxanne Kreider, in guitar practice.
Staff photo by Robyn C. Stein

The students will work on ways to protect the environment.    

STOCKTON — There may be more students walking when Stockton Public School reopens Wednesday, Sept. 5. It's part of the school's new theme, "Going Green" in which students will work on ways to protect the environment, even if it's as simple as walking to school rather than burning gasoline to have mom or dad drive them there.

 "It's an exciting one," Superintendent Suzanne Ivans said of the theme. "One student spoke eloquently about how 'An Inconvenient Truth' really made her think that if everyone does something, one small part, it could help."

 "An Inconvenient Truth" is the documentary by former Vice President Al Gore about the effects of global warming.
   Ms. Ivans smiled when she thought about another student who has trouble getting up every morning to get to school and has to have her parents drive her there.

 "She said to me, "I could get up earlier and walk to school and save gas,'" Ms. Ivans said. "I'm always on her case about getting up earlier."

 While "Going Green" is a school-wide theme, fifth- and sixth-graders will take a leadership role, Ms. Ivans said, with getting more people to walk rather than drive a major emphasis.

The school chief also is excited about new "Science to Go" kits that are hands-on rather than "opening a book and reading," she said.

 The new kits will help students "think like scientists, who are always asking questions and setting up experiments to test those hypotheses," Ms. Ivans said.

 A plus for tiny Stockton School is that these kits are sent to the school, then can be stored by the company that supplies them, saving valuable space.

 Ms. Ivans plans a meeting for parents on the new science kits for Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m.

"We've had math nights before to educate them," she explained.
  

She added that past science curricula didn't do a lot of experiments until high school, but studies have shown elementary school students are capable of doing them.

 "We don't tell them the answers," Ms. Ivans said. For example, students will learn on their own that dark colors absorb heat while light ones reflect it.  That gives them "a deeper level of understanding," she said.

"We want them to think like scientists; be careful observers of their world."

The school also is gearing up for $542,306 in renovations, approved by voters 124-51 last September.  Work hasn't started yet. The district is applying for $54,000 from the Garden State Historic Preservation Trust Fund to recoup some of the costs of the preliminary and future work, such as bid specifications.

The renovation project will include work on the foundation, clapboard siding, ramps and stairs as well as a deteriorating chimney that needs to be removed and attic walls that need strengthening.

Once the school is able to go out to bid and has building code approval, district officials hope the work can begin right after school closes next summer.

Some of the work that had been done this past year included an X-ray of the school to determine its original color. Ms. Ivans said there were 27 layers of paint over the clapboard siding, which revealed the original color to be beige.

The district also will apply for a $250,000 grant for the renovation project. That, along with a 40 percent reduction, or reimbursement, from the state for construction costs, means taxpayers should only be responsible for $175,384 of the total cost of the repairs.

While the district "rolls up our sleeves and gets to work" on the renovation project, Ms. Ivans said this year, there will be 43 students, a slight drop from last year's total of 47, when the school reopens.

There will be no new faces on the faculty, but, perhaps, happier ones. The teachers settled a new three-year contract with the Board of Education on June 21.

The contract calls for raises of 3.5 percent the first two years and 4.5 percent the final year. There were no other changes.

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