Eek

Various seminars at a recent New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) event had interesting speakers and were informative, according to several Middlesex school board members and officials.

They briefed colleagues who did not attend the seminars during a Tuesday, Nov. 19 school board meeting. A half-dozen audience members were clued in as well. Meanwhile, an uninvited guest scurried about the Middlesex High School media center, apparently disinterested in the discussion taking place nearby.

That guest, a small mouse or rodent, zipped back and forth across the carpet near one of the blue padded chairs huddled in the middle of the room. Board members, administrators and most audience members were unaware of the animal’s presence.

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Had the rodent ventured to the other side of the media center where the board members and administrators convened, it might have been interesting to witness the reaction.

Roughly 10 feet from where the mouse zig-zagged, sat a table with several pizzas in boxes. The food was part of the usual pre-meeting takeout consumed by board members. No word on whether the rodent preferred pepperoni or sausage crumbs.

Reportedly, it was not the first recent occurrence of rodents being spotted at MHS. There is also at least one past online account of rodents there, on the niche.com website. The day after the Nov. 19 meeting, Inside – Middlesex obtained a photo purporting to show a rodent killed in a trap in the MHS culinary arts room earlier in 2024.

On a niche.com school ratings page, one anonymous poster left an account of MHS 11 months ago. Among the student’s claims was “our school isn’t always the cleanest being that we’ve had four mice and two rats from September 2023 to January 2024.”

Inside – Middlesex emailed School Superintendent Dr. Roberta Freeman after the board meeting, seeking comment on the rodent observed in the media center. She responded on Nov. 21 via email, writing “No, there is no rodent problem.”

At the meeting, Freeman spoke of a seminar she attended at the NJSBA event entitled “Team Work Makes the Dream Work.” It reviewed positive initiatives undertaken in the nearby Franklin Township district. The projects featured outside-the-box thinking and collaboration between municipal and school officials.

Freeman mentioned that Franklin Township had repurposed old school buildings to gain more space. She did not go into details. Earlier this year, Freeman mentioned at public meetings that the Middlesex district’s buildings have run out of classrooms.

SSP Architects was secured by the Franklin Township board to deal with facilities issues. The firm’s website offers specifics not mentioned by Dr. Freeman.

In Franklin, the issues were overcrowded facilities, aging buildings, and the need to eliminate a dozen trailers at what was then six of nine schools.

The effort began with a master plan, long-range facilities planning and obtaining grants for capital improvements and energy savings. A site was found and design drawn for administrative offices and a new elementary and middle school campus.

Eventually, a referendum was passed. The Franklin district’s plan centered on the construction of a new elementary school and the expansion and conversion of a former intermediate school into a second middle school.

According to the SSP site, the projects led to improved student/teacher ratios and provided space to educate pupils with disabilities within the Franklin district’s schools.

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