“I’ve proudly lived in and served the East Orange community for over 40 years and I am deeply touched and humbled that this new school will carry my name,” said Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver, who serves as Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs. “Educational facilities must evolve and grow with ever-changing technological and societal demands and this new state of the art school was designed not just to meet the needs of students in today’s world but to be adaptable to the needs of the world to come. I thank Governor Murphy, the SDA, and the East Orange community for this great honor and I wish the Academy much success in serving and educating New Jersey’s future generations.”

NJSDA’s important construction work was deemed essential throughout the ongoing pandemic in order to ensure that facilities such as this reached completion. The new Sheila Y. Oliver Academy was constructed to address Facilities Efficiency Standard (FES) Compliance needs in the East Orange School District. This facility represents a total state investment of $41 million, delivers 77,000 square-feet of new construction, and provides approximately 500 new seats for East Orange students in pre-Kindergarten to fifth grade.

“The NJSDA continues to be a leader in school construction, delivering high quality educational facilities in order to fulfill this Administration’s commitment to invest in the education of students in East Orange and throughout the State,” said NJSDA CEO Manuel Da Silva. “This school will provide generations of young scholars with the educational spaces and resources needed to learn, grow, and play. We thank the East Orange School District officials and legislative representatives for their partnership to bring this project to completion.”

The Sheila Y. Oliver Academy facility includes 24 general classrooms, two self-contained special education classrooms, a science lab, a cafeteria, a multi-purpose room with stage, a media center, a music room, an art room, a technology lab, and necessary support spaces. Consistent with NJSDA standards, this school was delivered with 1:1 student-device technology, an educational necessity needed now more than ever before. The technology provided for students attending this school stands ready to support student learning as educators navigate these extraordinary times.

As a result of SDA's commitment to building energy-efficient buildings that consider the surrounding environment, this school was built to be LEED (United States Green Building Council – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. The SDA anticipates that the new Sheila Oliver Academy building will achieve a LEED Silver certification. This new facility was constructed on the site of the former George Washington Carver Institute for Science and Technology. The school was built using a design-build approach. The design-build method differs from the traditional design-bid-build approach by allowing the SDA to contract with one firm for both design and construction of a school facilities project. Dobco, Inc. was the design-build contractor, and worked in partnership with NK Architects on the design. The project was managed by STV Construction, Inc. This is the ninth capital project completed by the SDA in East Orange. Since the program’s inception, the SDA has invested more than $310 million in completed projects in East Orange alone.