The sophomore at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren has been working hard on the lighting and sound for a production of "Pippin," set to take the stage later this week at the school's sparkling new 1,070-seat Performing Arts Center.

Greenbaum is no less happy to be at school during regular hours, too, taking full advantage of the new and renovated classrooms and laboratories. There's even more room walking through the halls and new bathroom facilities.

For those who vote against the massive expansion or new construction of schools -- because of their cost or for their size -- Greenbaum is perhaps the best representation of the other side. This is a student who last year -- as a freshman -- wrote an op-ed piece to a local newspaper pleading for taxpayers to approve a final $3 million referendum to complete a high-school renovation project that was originally supposed to cost $41 million.

"It's been great," Greenbaum said of the school, which serves students from Warren, Watchung and Green Brook in Somerset County and Long Hill in Morris County. "The classrooms have more space and updated equipment. There's a new heating system. There's more to the arts rooms. We have newer chemistry and biology labs, so they're not in small corner rooms that haven't been updated since the 1970s.

"And the hallways used to be very, very crowded. Now, I can actually get around without fighting the crowds," he added.

Greenbaum is just one of many young -- and older -- voices pleased with the overhaul to their school, even if some may see it as slightly ostentatious.

In addition to Watchung Hills, Central Jersey high schools such as Montgomery, Franklin and Hunterdon Central Regional have recently completed new construction or are just finishing major renovations. And the reviews from most inside these hallowed halls are positive.

But as difficult as it was for the schools to fund and complete their upgrades, others in New Jersey are having more of a challenge in today's economic climate.

According to an annual bond referendum survey by the New Jersey School Boards Association, only 42.9 percent of proposed spending for school construction was approved in 2006. That's down from 58.3 percent approved spending in 2005 and nearly half as much as the 84 percent approved spending in 2003.

The steep drop-off can easily be correlated to fall 2005, when state officials announced that the money used for school-construction grants provided by the Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act of 2000 was depleted.

Last week, in the only referendum in the state, voters defeated a $17.4 million construction project for the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District -- making the "haves" that much more grateful.

"We've been to a lot of college campuses," said Debbie Andrew, president of the Montgomery High School Parent-Teacher Student Association. "And I have to say, some of them aren't far off from what we have here."

While many schools vary on how to improve their facilities, the reasons why the upgrades are needed are mostly the same -- a growth in population combined with a dire need to update facilities.

Watchung Hills Regional, for example, had an enrollment of 1,270 in 2001. Now it's just under 2,100, easing the justification of the renovation of all of the classrooms and the addition of an adjoining new structure.

"We were getting very, very crowded," said Dr. Frances Stromsland, superintendent of Watchung Hills. "Our student body has grown on average 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent each year over the last five years. Even moving in the hallways had become exceedingly congestive. We desperately needed the classroom space."

While the new Franklin High School gained notoriety as the state's largest new construction project in 2004-05 with a $66 million price tag, the new structure allowed for needed improvements for the entire school system.

"That's why we called it an education referendum," said Eva Nagy, president of the Franklin Township Board of Education. "We needed a new high school, but in addition, our middle school was to be housed at the old high schools. And in most districts, you don't have a middle school with high school labs.

"We also were able to put our fifth- and sixth-graders into the old middle school," Nagy added. "It bumped everyone up. It dealt with all of our enrollment growth challenges."

While no official statistics are kept on square footage of New Jersey schools, it is easy to see that space is being increased with the greater depths of education in the 21st century.

The new building at Watchung Hills Regional is 97,000 square feet. The entire area of the new Franklin High School is estimated at 340,000 square feet. Hunterdon Central, which is at the tail-end of a $28.8 million expansion and renovation project, sits on a sprawling 72-acre campus.

"It's probably safe to say that your typical school built today is larger than one built 50 years ago," said Mike Yaple, public information officer of the New Jersey School Boards Association. "Back then, educators didn't deal with today's extensive special-education requirements and accessibility issues, technology demands, improved libraries, transportation issues, efforts to keep class size under control and teaching nine Core Curriculum Content Standards instead of just the 'Three R's."

"There are many more challenges that face our students today that we didn't face growing up," Nagy added. "Technology, being one of them. We have to prepare them for a worldwide economy and there's so much more happening even in currents events. They have to learn so much more than we did growing up."

Class plus

While classroom numbers and size have been paramount to all of the recent high-school renovation projects in the area, schools are filling their increased extremities with other things.

In addition to 23 new classrooms and 47 classrooms renovated for the first time in 40 years, there's a new auxiliary gymnasium, an expanded library, a revamped auditorium and upgraded technology for the communication and music buildings at Hunterdon Central.

At Montgomery, the new building features a distance-learning lab where video conferences can be held. There's also a swimming pool. And, starting with the Class of 2009, students are required to take swimming while attending gym in the freshman and sophomore years.

All of the schools also have updated the technology in the rooms with wireless Internet and security systems. But it's the laboratories and the arts rooms that seem to get the greatest overhaul.

"In our new wing, we have a put a number of classrooms that are dedicated to science labs and rooms dedicated to the arts," Stromsland said of the new building at Watchung Hills Regional. "Whether it's music, theater, fine arts or visual arts, that wing has really become a hub of activity."

The new bells and whistles at the school have also brought an air of enthusiasm to the students."

"It's not really spoken about, but if you press them they have to admit having more space and all of these new classrooms has been great," Greenbaum said. "They definitely would prefer not to go back to the old school."

Complaints? There are but a few, although all are being addressed.

At Montgomery High School, for example, navigation is a problem for some. "With the way the school is laid out, it can be a little difficult to maneuver," Andrew said. "There's a lot of different ways you can get to a classroom and a lot of the room numbers are not sequential.

"Maybe the biggest complaint is the clinical, steelier look inside of the school," Andrew added. "Some people complain, 'It's too white.' But it's silly. It's just like starting a new home. It just takes time and it takes a little money to get it where you want it to be."

Bigger issues are taking place at Franklin, where the school has already reached its capacity of more than 2,000 students. But the new core structure was built to efficiently accommodate eventual additions, should they be approved.

"We were very proactive in that," Nagy said. "At the end of all the academic wings, we'll be able to class rooms. Even the auditorium was built so we could put a balcony in."

At Watchung Hills, officials are considering what they're already doing at Montgomery -- renting out their Performing Arts Center to outside groups as a revenue stream. Stromsland said that money could go toward hiring teachers to use some of the empty rooms at the school.

"We certainly realize that not everything we want to do will come at the expense of the tax-payer," she said. "They've certainly done enough."