Newark Fights Crowding With New Riverfront School

Newark plans to open Riverfront School on the site of a former parochial school in the Ironbound section. This new school aims to alleviate crowding at existing schools in the densely populated East Ward. The project will employ a lease-purchase agreement, a model also used for a new district high school launched last fall.

The Riverfront School will be a completely new construction, built from the ground up. Details regarding its opening date, grade levels, and costs are expected to be disclosed at a special meeting on March 25, 2026. This meeting was rescheduled from its original date for the school budget hearing.

Union leaders have called the new school "long overdue," citing high class sizes in current Ironbound schools. The lease-purchase model allows the district to build new facilities without relying on state funding, with lease payments covered by the operating budget.

The site for Riverfront School is the former St. Aloysius Grammar School, a building that has been unused for years and is now in disrepair. Notably, actor Henry Winkler, a Newark native, attended St. Aloysius in the 1950s and expressed a sentiment of progress despite a dislike for demolishing historical places.