Business Administrator Joseph Crotchfelt explained how the district measures space at the high school and Churchill. The board says it has not chosen a plan for the high school.
East Brunswick High School is “over capacity by 463 students,” and Churchill Junior High School is over “by about 650,” Business Administrator Joseph Crotchfelt told the Board of Education on Sept. 24.
Crotchfelt said the figures come from a state space-planning calculation, not a safety measure. “It’s safe, and we’re not in violation of any safety code,” he said of the high school.
The number, he said, comes “when you start looking at, the square footage that the state uses for their recommendations, for their calculations. We’re over by 463 students. Fire code, we’re fine.”
The remarks came as board members answered questions residents submitted about the future of the high school. The board has not decided whether to maintain, expand or replace the building.
Churchill’s temporary classrooms
Crotchfelt tied Churchill’s figure to the temporary classroom units, or TCUs, beside the building.
“Remember, we put the TCUs there,” he said. The units added classroom space, he said, “but the hallways didn’t get bigger, right? The lunchroom didn’t get bigger. The gym didn’t get bigger for 700 additional students. So we’re over, according to the calculation, by about 650 students.”
The district’s other schools, he said, “are okay. You know, they’re not over, but there’s some close.”
The district’s annual financial report says the board authorized the units in May 2021, and they opened in September 2022 to hold the entire seventh grade. The report describes them as a short-term measure pending “a permanent facilities solution.” (Report.)
Why renovation alone would not bring ninth grade back
Ninth-graders now attend Churchill. Asked what challenges would remain even if the district renovated the high school, Crotchfelt said the repairs, however large, would not change the building’s size.
The work “still doesn’t address the footprint of the high school,” he said. If the goal is to bring ninth grade to the high school, he said, that would take renovation “plus an addition.” He added that a renovation would not address “the size of the hallways” either.
The costs he cited
Crotchfelt pointed to the district’s long-range facilities plan, the state-required list of building needs, which he said the board “recently adopted.”
“When I just look at that list, for the high school, non-athletic related, it totals $295 million,” he said.
He described what drives the cost:
- The building is “only about 60%” air-conditioned. Adding cooling would require replacing an electrical system that “does not have the capacity” for it.
- It “needs a new roof,” estimated at “$24 million” when the list was prepared and “probably 26 million” today.
Later he said none of that $295 million addresses the difficulty students with disabilities have getting around the building.
Eyes on EB could not find the $295 million figure in the plan documents it reviewed. The board-approved November 2025 list itemizes high school renovations totaling about $317 million, or about $290 million without athletic items. It includes a new 3,000-seat auditorium ($32.1 million) and purchase of adjacent property ($2.3 million) alongside repairs. (List.)
In August, the district’s architect put the cost of maintaining the building at up to $312.5 million, citing a 2026 update to the plan that has not been made public. (Slides.)
The architect’s August options for adding space were:
- moving Churchill’s TCUs to the high school, $9 million to $11 million
- a ninth-grade academy addition, $66 million to $74 million
- a new high school, $385 million to $425 million
All are estimated hard cost plus contingency.
How long a renovation might take
Asked about a timeline, Crotchfelt said: “If memory serves me correctly, the architect projected, like, it taking eight years.” The work would have to be done in sequence, he said, while students are in the building: “You got to do the electrical first,” before new heating and cooling could go in.
The figure was his recollection. The architect’s August schedule lists the maintain-the-building option as “ongoing” and gives no completion date.
Capacity figures in district records
Two district records give different capacity figures for the high school:
- The district’s annual financial report for fiscal 2025, filed with the state, lists the building’s capacity as 2,724 students, with enrollment of 2,128 as of October 2024.
- The architect’s Aug. 20 presentation lists its “existing capacity” as 2,541.
In the records Eyes on EB reviewed, neither figure reconciles with “463 over,” and the calculation behind Crotchfelt’s figure was not provided at the meeting.
No plan has been chosen
Crotchfelt said the board had met in closed session “with bond counsel for legal advice regarding… high school project potentials,” to be discussed at future meetings.
Board President Marianne Tanious said the board will form an ad hoc high school committee to gather community input. “No decisions have been taken at this time,” she said.
The architect’s August presentation listed the next steps as direction from the board, further project development, state approvals and, finally, a community vote.
