There is also a paper petition circulating. Please sign either the on line petition or the paper. You do not need to sign both.
The Paramus Board of Education is in discussions to
sublease Westbrook Middle School to The Japanese Weekend School for use every
Saturday from 8:30 am until 2:30pm.
450 students attend the Japanese Weekend School and would
require parking and/or dropping off of students every Saturday. Westbrook has approximately 100 parking
spaces and therefore there would be significant parking and traffic on the
surrounding streets and neighborhood.
Our parking lot at Westbrook is already full every Saturday from the
various sports that are played both outside and inside. The
Board of Education has indicated that they will allow the Japanese School to
park on the Westbrook Basketball courts if necessary, rendering them unusable
by our neighborhood children. The additional
traffic to our neighborhood on a Saturday would be a major inconvenience and
potentially dangerous.
The students of the Japanese School would require use of the
classrooms, the cafeteria and the gymnasiums.
It is unknown at this time what the impact will be on our recreation
programs that use the Westbrook facilities but according to the Recreation
Department, the Westbrook gymnasiums are already used at full capacity so it is
likely some of our programs will be displaced.
The Board of Education claims that
the program would bring in approximately $100k, but they have not deducted the
expenses that will obviously be associated with such a program. At
best, the revenue would represent less than one half of one percent of the
district’s budget and that is not enough revenue to justify the inconvenience
to our neighborhood, the displacement of our Recreation programs and the wear
and tear on our children’s school. Any
potential revenue would not be directly returned to Westbrook School or it’s students
and the cost to the tax payers would be increased for electrical,
and ventilation services, janitorial cost to keep and maintain the facilities
throughout the school, police and crossing guards
controlling the flow of traffic and the automobile degradation, destroying the
neighborhood integrity.
Lastly, Japanese Weekend School has been using Paramus
Catholic facilities for the past several years.
According to Paramus Board of Education, Paramus Catholic is not
renewing the lease of the Japanese Weekend School because Paramus Catholic has
determined the program is disruptive to their school and their parking
lot. Paramus Catholic has almost 600
parking spaces.
Sign on to this petition to stop the sublease of Westbrook
to The Japanese Weekend School. Thank
you.