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.

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