Middletown Abruptly Cancels Its Plan To Close Schools Next Year

CoMIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown school district just abruptly canceled its plans to close two elementary schools and Bayshore Middle School next year.

That is because the school board failed to pass a long-range facilities plan (LRFP) at its board meeting Tuesday night.

School board president Chris Aveta and superintendent Jessica Alfone said — without that plan — the school district does not have enough time to prepare for school closings in June.

The following is the entirety of a very short letter Aveta and Alfone sent out Wednesday afternoon:

"As a direct result of the Board's failure to adopt the Long-Range Facilities Plan at last night's meeting, we simply do not have enough time to properly plan and effectuate the school closings for the 2026-2027 school year. We are recommending that the Middletown Township School District not implement the planned school closings and consolidations scheduled for the 2026-2027 school year."

The letter was signed by BOE president Aveta and superintendent Alfone.

How did we get here? First, Tuesday night's school board meeting went on for more than six hours, from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.

In the first half of the meeting, a 5-4 majority of the school board passed next year's 2026-'27 budget; the budget is publicly available here. The budget was written to anticipate closing Leonardo and Navesink elementaries, and turning Bayshore Middle School into an elementary school.

However, a majority of the board then failed to pass the long-range facilities plan.

Board member Caterina Skalaski joined with Erin Torres, Joan Minnuies, Mark Soporowksi and Deb Wright to vote against the plan, saying they are concerned the district is not properly planning for special-education students, should schools close. Wright also said the plan was given to board members too late in the day Tuesday for them to fully review.

After the board voted not to pass the long-range plan, superintendent Alfone dropped the major bombshell that closing schools in Middletown is not possible without that plan being approved.

Alfone said Monmouth County Education Superintendent Lester Richens told her he would not accept school closings in Middletown without the long-range facilities plan.

That prompted Skalaski to say she would like to rescind her vote, and approve the plan.

And then an argument broke out between arch-enemies Torres and Jacqueline Tobacco over whether it was legal to allow Skalaski to rescind her vote.

Minnuies accused Tobacco of bullying Skalaski into changing her vote, which both Skalaski and Tobacco denied.

Torres kept putting forward motions to adjourn the meeting. Torres said all the votes that were taken in the last hour of the meeting were invalid on procedural grounds, as she pulled up procedures from Robert's Rules of Order on her phone, and read them to the board.

By this point, it was after 1 a.m. and Board president Aveta adjourned the meeting.

Not even 24 hours later, he and the superintendent announced the plan was dead. Alfone is retiring from the school district at the end of June; "in 60 days," as she put it Tuesday night.

Correction: It was Joan Minnuies who accused Jacqueline Tobacco of bullying or pressuring Caterina Skalaski into changing her vote, not Erin Torres.

Watch the six-hour April 28 Middletown school board meeting: