Summerfield School will provide a 21st century learning environment for 736 students in pre-Kindergarten through 5th grade - including essential early childhood instruction for 3- and 4-year-olds. It is part of the final phase of Neptune's Long Range Facility Plan (LRFP) to ease overcrowding and increase the quality of education and level of student achievement. The new school also embraces cost-efficient, sustainable environmental and green building technologies and marked SCC's first venture into the cost- and time-saving design-build approach.

Superintendent David A. Mooij stated, "With the opening of the new Summerfield Elementary School, Neptune Township completes its first new-from-the-ground-up facility. It will not only provide students with a code compliant, up-to-date educational facility but will act to serve the students as a '3-D textbook' for 'Live Event Learning.' The school will serve as an intra-district field trip destination for all the elementary schools in Neptune and will reveal history themes mixed with lessons in sustainable living and care of the environment."

SCC Special Counsel and Transitional CEO Scott Weiner said, "Summerfield will have a great impact on young learners - from age three through the pre-teen years. It will give them a solid educational foundation to build upon as they progress through middle school and high school."

The 150,000-square-foot, three-story school building incorporates LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines and features a farm-themed design. Aside from traditional classrooms and academic spaces, the school includes a garden and an open-air amphitheatre at the rear of a cafeteria/auditorium accessible to students and the community alike.

In the design-build approach, the process is accelerated as the construction and design overlap and materials are pre-purchased - saving money and time. Summerfield was designed and constructed within two years. Traditionally, a school design alone takes 12 to 15 months, and construction another 22 months, with building materials obtained throughout the process. Patock Construction Co. worked on

Other Neptune LRFP projects funded and managed by SCC include: Neptune Early Childhood Center and Neptune High School the expansion of Neptune High School and Shark River Hills Elementary School; and the ongoing construction of Neptune Community School.