Woodbridge Township School District has been given a ten million dollar grant to help fix sports and athletic fields, bleachers, playgrounds and other aesthetic features around the town’s schools.
The past couple of years have seen a lot of change in the way Woodbridge Townships schools look thanks to a ten million dollar investment from tax collections and new businesses here in Woodbridge.
The changes started seven years ago when Woodbridge High School got a new turf field. The Township funded the project and collected the money from tax incentives, meaning the school does not have to pay the money back for the changes made. Recently, a couple of projects have been set to change the looks of the three high school’s sport fields. One of the major changes is the new Woodbridge Stadium being built at Woodbridge High School, a project costing $2.8 million. The new stadium will be finished by this fall, just in time for the next football season. The project also covered the cost for Colonia High School’s new track and will cover the cost of the proposed synthetic field and storm drain improvements for the football and baseball fields. Changes to John F Kennedy Memorial High School’s track and tennis courts also saw an upgrade in the recent years thanks to the program by the township, and they will also receive synthetic fields for the football and baseball fields for the new school season. The project list continues as new projects are being put into the works, such as new playgrounds for elementary schools, new auditorium seating for several of the schools, and upgrades to the soccer and softball fields all around Woodbridge Township.
Senior Richard Bernat at Woodbridge High School said the new stadium is a great step up from the old one. “It wasn’t safe because there was mold and algae starting to grow in the plumbing. The locker rooms were horrible and almost unusable,” cited Bernat. 
Bernat also stated, “The money should be used for other things too, like for education and books, or other sport teams that don’t get much funding.”
Alex Payne, a senior here at Colonia, is excited for the new fields. “I wish I could still play football for the school just to play on the new football field. We really needed an upgrade from the old field.”
Joshua Cammack, a junior at John F. Kennedy Memorial High School, is also excited for the new fields at the school. “I can’t wait to play on the new fields. A lot of schools get turf fields and we were stuck with the old fields that had dirt spots in the outfield. We needed this,” explained Cammack.
From the sounds of it, countless students are excited for the new changes for sports fields and other cosmetic changes, all thanks to Woodbridge Township from saving the schools from the cost of paying for these changes. These changes have many wondering if the modifications will be completed before graduation, which normally occurs on the football fields at each high school. If the changes to the fields are not completed prior to graduation, an alternate location, such as the Expo Center in Raritan Center, may host graduations for the high schools.
