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Long Branch Educators, SCC Celebrate New Middle School
State Funded, Managed Construction of $50 Million Facility
That Also Will Serve as Red Cross Emergency Shelter
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Long Branch, NJ (November 30, 2005) - Long Branch students joined teachers, school district officials, community leaders and New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation (SCC) representatives in an Open House and ribbon-cutting ceremony today for the new $50 million Long Branch Middle School. Tours of the new school were held following the ceremony.
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The facility - the second new school to open here this year - is part of Long Branch's district-wide expansion program that SCC is fully funding and managing.
The new 247,000-square-foot, 3-story school accommodates 1,100 students in 6th through 8th grades. The project, built on the existing high school/middle school campus at Bath and Indiana avenues, includes 68 classrooms, a media center and 12 science labs. It features a geo-thermal heating/cooling well system, which permits the school to be more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly. The school also is designed to serve as a Red Cross emergency shelter for this Monmouth County community and surrounding area.
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Long Branch Middle School Band
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Joseph M. Ferraina, Superintendent of Schools, remarked, "This is an amazing time in the history of the Long Branch Public Schools. This year we opened two new schools and will have two more new schools opening within two years." He noted that the first - the Amerigo A. Anastasia Elementary School on Seventh Avenue - opened to students in September. It also was used during July and August for the district's Summer Enrichment Camp.
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"This type of new school construction will never take place again in the history of Long Branch," added Ferraina. "We need to thank the Governor and his predecessors for their vision in funding urban school districts. The Schools Construction Corporation has done a wonderful job in Long Branch overseeing the construction of these new schools."
Kellie Drakeford, Managing Director of SCC Office of Diversity, Small Business, Government and Community Affairs, said, "The SCC is proud to play a part in this project, and is appreciative of the extraordinary support received from the Long Branch school district and many, many others. Together, we have built something truly memorable - not merely a building of bricks and mortar, but a very, very bright tomorrow for the children of Long Branch."
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Long Branch Middle School Chorus
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Construction on the project began in late August 2003. The design firm is the alliance of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture/Engineering and DCM Architecture Inc. Skanska USA Building Inc. is the general contractor and Gilbane managed the project for the SCC.
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