Special-needs school 'was never going to close' Board president puts end to weeks of speculation about EEC BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer The rumor that the school district's Educational Enrichment Center would close "took on a life of its own" over the past few weeks, the Brick Township school board president said. But that's not going to happen. The school will stay open, said Board of Education President Sharon Kight. "The school was never going to close," Kight said at the April 10 Township Council meeting. "I was a little disappointed in the way the situation was handled." She made the comment after council President Stephen C. Acropolis called Kight up to the microphone at the council meeting and told her he had received a called from a parent concerned about the school's closing. "Is that school going to close?" he asked Kight. Kight said schools Superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger had tried to find other ways to bring money into the district, but "at no time" had he ever discussed closing the EEC. "That was never, ever going to happen," she said. Kight said she thought a confidential conversation Seidenberger had with another administrator discussing options "really just took on a life of its own." Seidenberger never discussed closing the school with the Board of Education, Kight said. "Dr. Seidenberger is the chief school administrator," she said. "This subject has never been discussed with the board. We have never sat down and had a conversation about this." The school's possible closure has been a major topic of conversation in town for weeks. Parents, many of whom wore white T-shirts with "Every Education Counts" printed in red letters on the front, packed the March 27 Township Council meeting to get an answer. Seidenberger said after he made a presentation on the 2007-2008 school budget that a decision on whether to keep the EEC open had not been made. "There's a lot of rumors going around," he said at the council meeting. "It's been a very difficult budget to put together. I'm not embarrassed to say we cannot consider any program to be a sacred cow." Kight and the school board were also present at the council meeting. The school, located next to the central administration building on Hendrickson Avenue, was not included in the district's proposed 2007-2008 budget details provided to the public on March 12. Seidenberger said then that no final decision had been made about the school. "But I'm not going to lie," he told the Bulletin then. "We have discussed closing it." The EEC, which opened in September 2004, was built to educate special needs students who were previously sent out of district for schooling. The 20,000-square-foot one-floor school has eight classrooms, a small-group instruction area, a multipurpose room, a life skills area, and several offices for the director and child study team members. Each classroom is equipped with a television and a sink area. The life skills area features a teaching kitchen with working appliances. The district built the $3.6 million school after voters approved a 2001 bond referendum. It houses 70 students, ranging in age from 3 to 14, and 47 full- and part-time staff members, Principal Cynthia Garrett has said. Kight said last week that she had gotten a call recently from a Toms River school district employee who lives in Brick who asked her if the EEC was going to be used as a day care center. "I said, 'I don't even know what you are talking about,' " Kight said. When Kight and running mate John Talty learned that Seidenberger had been speaking to parents about the school, they asked to be included, she said. "The information I was getting with Dr. Seidenberger on an education level was that certain students were going to be transitioned from that school to a different school because it was best for them educationally, and if the parents felt comfortable," Kight said. Parents of the children in the school have "enough turmoil" in their lives already, she said "The threat of that must have been devastating," she said. "If he was thinking of changing the location, he should have been having an open dialogue with them months ago and he should have been talking to board members. He never did that." Seidenberger would have had to bring the issue to the board for a majority vote, she said. "It never got to that point," she said. "It's staying exactly the way it is."