WEST MILFORD A plan for some high school students to design a cover for the township master plan blossomed into a classroom project that had students redesigning portions of West Milford. As part of an ongoing effort to improve the relationship and communication between town hall and the school district, Planning Board Chairman Michael Tfank approached Superintendent Glenn Kamp about the kids coming up with a cover design for the master plan about a year ago. Teacher Allan Efrus took the idea and ran with it. Efrus, who has an architectural background, split his senior Computer Assisted Drawing (CAD) class into two teams and challenged them to redesign a portion of West Milford and not only improve the way the area looks, but to increase the taxable potential of commercial properties. Efrus acted as the client and the two teams named Brick House Engineering and Team Badger not only had to meet planning deadlines, they had to manage the accounting and payroll for their “companies.” At the end of several months of work, both teams designed hotels for the Browne’s Point area, redesigned the ShopRite Plaza and came up with a plan to turn Vander Stat Mill into an activity area (one team made it an outdoor bike/skate/go-cart park, the other made it an indoor go-cart track). Members from both teams said they tried to keep the designs in line with the natural and rustic feel of the township and both said they drew inspiration from the Mountainside Car Wash. They used professional-level software and had the cooperation and help of the Bill Drew, head of the Planning Department, and Tfank. Kamp said that he quite often gets requests that involve the high school students doing some sort of project. Sometimes the projects fit better into the curriculum than others. He is particularly pleased with the work done on this one because, he said, “This provided the kids with comprehensive real life experience.” Tfank had nothing but high praise for the students and their work and said that the renderings will be on display soon in town hall. That, too, grew into something bigger. The town hall display will include original art and photography by students. The business, arts and tech classes at the high school are all overseen by Katha Griswald. Efrus, who has been teaching at West Milford for about a year and a half has an architectural consulting firm and has taught as an adjunct professor at Kean University.