No announcement yet on proposed new school site
By darlene diebold
Staff Writer

HOLMDEL — The Board of Education is close to announcing the location of a proposed new school site.

At last week’s meeting, Board President Frank Pento said he hopes to announce the location of a proposed school building for grades 2-3 sometime this week.

In November, the ad hoc advisory committee on school population growth recommended building a new school in order to deal with the growing population. Pento declined to say what site has been chosen at this point because the owner of the site has not yet been contacted. In case the board’s first choice does not work out, it has picked a secondary site.

The board plans to hold a construction referendum in December to seek voter approval of the necessary funding.

The district currently has four schools: grades K-2 Village School in south Holmdel; grades 3-6 Indian Hill School in north Holmdel; the William R. Satz Intermediate School; and Holmdel High School, both on Crawfords Corner Road in central Holmdel.

In other news, Dr. Lisa M. Petrone has been appointed to the position of director of special services. She will join the district on Sept. 18. Petrone currently holds the same position in the Fort Lee School District in Bergen County.

"I am very pleased to be here and very enthusiastic about this coming year," Petrone said. She has also worked in Red Bank as a learning-disabilities consultant and taught education at the graduate and undergraduate levels at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.

Petrone has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in special education from Monmouth University and a doctorate in special education from Columbia University, New York.