PROVIDED BY MONROE TOWNSHIP PUBLIC SCHOOLS An architect's rendering shows the eventual facade of the new elementary school in Monroe. With construction under way on the school, set to open next September, residents are being asked to come up with its name. MONROE - School officials are asking residents to help them come up with a name for the elementary school being built on Applegarth Road.

The school, which was approved in a $26.8 million referendum in January 2006, is being constructed on 30 acres of donated land across the street from the Applegarth Middle School. It is expected to open in September 2008.

Workers broke ground last spring, and site grading is nearly complete. Steel is now being erected, and masonry walls are going up around the gymnasium. Construction is due to be complete next spring.

The school will have a capacity for about 700 students, and eventually will serve as a "sister" elementary school to what is currently the Applegarth Middle School, which will become an elementary school after the new high school is built. The current high school building will become the district's middle school, housing grades six, seven and eight.

A demographic study completed this summer by Whitehall Associates shows districtwide enrollment growing from 5,299 students this year to 7,061 in the 2011-12 school year.

In naming the new elementary school, officials are inviting any resident or group, such as a school class, community organization or family, to submit a suggestion and reason for that name. The Name the New School Committee will review the submissions and select three proposed names to the Board of Education, which will in turn decide on a name at its Oct. 17 meeting.

Entries are being accepted in writing via mail, fax, e-mail or online until Oct. 8. They can be sent to the Name Our New School Committee at 370 Buckelew Ave., Monroe, NJ 08831, faxed to (732) 521- 6022, e-mailed to newschool@ monroe.k12.nj.us or submitted online at www.monroe.k12.nj.us.

All entries must state the group or individual's name, address, phone number, e-mail address, name for the new school, and reason for the name.