schools

Woodmere’s ‘No. 6’ getting ready for HALB

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The terrazzo floors are being cleaned, walls for the classrooms are going up, windows are being installed and the color-coded wires are being bundled. The former Number Six School in Woodmere is being prepared for occupancy by the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB).

School officials said they could move their first through eighth grade students in by the end of November. 

“It’s a big job, an 80,000-square-foot building, all the trades are working in the building,” said HALB Executive Director Richard Hagler, as he guided a reporter through the maze of workers, equipment and materials. 

HALB bought the 6.67-acre site, which includes the 80,170-square-foot school building, for $8.5 million, along with $2.7 million that will be held as a guarantee that Lawrence will realize more than $565,000 in annual savings on what the district now spends on transportation for HALB students.

Approximately 95 percent of the students who attend HALB live in or very close to the Five Towns, HALB officials said. The sale was approved by public referendum in 2014.

The Lawrence School District spends about $10 million to transport more than 4,000 private-school students and 2,500 public school students. This year, the district has contracted for 13 buses for HALB students, according to Jeremy Feder, Lawrence’s assistant superintendent for business and transportation supervisor. 

Hagler said that the gymnasium’s wood floor is being preserved, there will be about 100 parking spaces, and car traffic will flow in from and out to Branch Boulevard. Buses will use Ibsen Street, he said.

There will be six new basketball hoops, three ballfields and two swimming pools for HALB’s summer program, Hagler said, with one of the pools sloped for younger swimmers, Hagler said.

Jeffrey Bessen is editor of the Nassau Herald, where a version of this story appeared.