On June 22, 1965, Hillsborough voters approved by a 2-1 margin an $896,000 bond issue for a new elementary school. Unlike the previous four schools built between 1950 and 1962 which started life as bare-bones 12, 16, or 20 room schools, the new Woods Road School would be a complete 25-room building right from the start, with an all-purpose room and all of the other amenities which had to be added to other schools later.
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Woods Road School artist's rendering
21 June 1965 Home News |
After the vote, Board President Morton Yeomans was quoted in the Courier News:
"We (the board) are extremely pleased that the citizens recognized the need for an elementary building. If they had not approved this proposal there would have been at least 20 classes on double sessions within the next 2 1/2 years."
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| 23 March 1966 Home News |
It seems incredible now, writing this in 2017 during a long period where student enrollment has been essentially flat and there has been no classroom space added in fifteen years, that a referendum defeat would have meant double sessions just a few years after the construction of TWO elementary schools in 1962 left the district with a classroom surplus! Such was the plight of Hillsborough during the rapid residential development of the 1950s through 1980s.
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| 29 January 1968 Home News |
The board was hoping for a Fall 1966 opening for the school, but as ground was not broken on the project until March 1966, they were fortunate to get the doors opened for students on April 17, 1967.
Woods Road School received its major upgrade - $2.6 million for the new gym, library, computer lab, art room, and five small group-instruction rooms - as part of a $13.4 million district-wide construction referendum that was passed on March 17, 1992.
Our "computer lab" in 1980 consisted of a single Tandy computer with cassette tape drive.
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