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Asbury Park students will, once again, all be able to walk to school in the fall.

Members of the Asbury Park Board of Education voted Tuesday to reinstate the Barack H. Obama building as an elementary school for the 2014-2015 school year.

Asbury Park has always been a walking district, but when the Obama School [formerly the Bangs Avenue School] closed in 2011 the students it served from the Southwest side of the city had to be shuttled to either Thurgood Marshall or Bradley elementary schools in the north and east sections of town. Come September, the only students that will continue to require transportation will be those with special needs, according to Interim Superintendent Robert Mahon.

Reopening the building as an elementary school will cost the district about $500,000, split between technology upgrades and the cost of replacement furniture since the old furniture was dispersed to other schools in the district when the building ceased elementary operations, Mahon said.

“Those are the major costs,” he said.

Mahon has not finalized how many new positions will be needed other than immediately advertising for a school principal so they can be present to monitor the building’s progress over the course of the next few months.

“That person becomes a key person in the oversight of the building,” Mahon said.

He is not looking to hire any new personnel if he doesn’t have to.

“In terms of the over all [staff] increase in the district, I’m looking to end up as close to zero as I can,” he said.

Staff at the Obama School will be balanced based on their experience and what each individual brings to the table, he said. Some staff members may choose to work at the new location on their own accord, but he expects others will have to be transferred.

“We’re going to have to do some reassignments, I’m sure,” he said. “But there will be people who will rise to the occasion and the challenge, and we will capitalize on their enthusiasm.”

The building was never fully out of operation, he said. Middle school and high school students students in alternative school programs attend classes in the building, and other support services are housed in the building including the Dorothy L. McNish Parent Center. In January, members of the school board voted to move their monthly meetings to the school’s auditorium.

The district’s alternative middle school program will move to a separate location in the middle school, away from the larger student population, he said. Details of where the high school students in the alternative school program will be relocated are still being worked out. A possible partnership with The Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission’s alternative school program may solve that, he said.

Formerly the Bangs Avenue school, the Barack H. Obama building was closed by State Monitor Bruce Rodman in the 2011-2012 school year based on declining enrollment and the board’s failure to approve a reorganization plan proposed by then Superintendent Denise Lowe to use the Obama school in a different configuration, Mahon previously told the Sun.

The board opposed the closing of the school but Rodman’s authority in the matter prevailed, he said.

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