By Sunayana Prabhu
MIDDLETOWN – A group of seven parents is asking the New Jersey Commissioner of Education to stop the district’s school closure plan, challenging the board of education’s (BOE) Feb. 26 decision to shutter three schools.
In a 206-page filing, the parents argue district officials failed to follow required procedures and pushed an outside consultant to “revise” his proposal to match their “predetermined” plan. The petition was filed March 4 by attorney Roshan D. Shah, a Lincroft resident.
The parents – Megan Daus, Melissa Daus, Kathleen Young, Kristin Rooney, Scott McPherson, Jessica Donohue and Emilie Donohue – are asking the state to void the board’s resolution that begins the process of closing Leonardo Elementary School and Navesink Elementary School and repurposing Bayshore Middle School.
Under the district’s proposal, Leonardo and Navesink would merge into a new Bayshore Elementary that will be housed in the current Bayshore Middle School building. Bayshore Middle School students would be reassigned to Thorne and Thompson middle schools.
The board approved the measure in a 5-4 vote at the Feb. 26 meeting. Board members Christopher Aveta, Frank Capone, Jacqueline Tobacco, Caterina Skalaski and Sara Weinstein voted in favor, while Erin Torres, Deborah Wright, Joan Minnuies and Mark Soporowski voted against it.
In the filing, parents claim the closures are “reckless and driven by agendas, not facts,” warning the plan could cause “overcrowding” and “exacerbate school segregation by locking a large number of minority and poor children out of the Township’s better performing high school, Middletown High School South.”
The parents are seeking interim relief requiring the district to keep the schools open through the 2026-27 school year while the dispute is being reviewed.
District officials have said the proposed closures are driven by mounting financial pressures. A “Restructuring Proposal” report released to the community days before the vote outlined plans to close schools to stabilize the district’s finances.
The proposal largely revives last year’s “Middletown Reimagined” plan, which recommended school closures to close a $10 million budget gap. After strong parent opposition in 2025, the board instead voted to raise the school tax levy by 10.1% to balance the budget and keep schools open.
Although the deficit has been reduced, district officials report a budget shortfall of more than $3 million this year. The district’s finance committee projects the structural deficit could grow to $13.9 million by the 2029-30 school year.
Officials said closing the three schools could generate between $3.7 million and $4 million in annual savings.
The board’s decision also relied on recommendations from Ross Haber Associates, an education planning consultant hired in spring 2025 to conduct a boundary and demographic study of the district’s school facilities. But the petition claims the consultant’s analysis changed dramatically over time and argues closure plans were influenced by district officials.
At a Jan. 27 BOE meeting, Haber presented a plan recommending that about 119 students be redistricted across six schools to relieve overcrowding. The proposal did not recommend closing schools. Superintendent Jessica Alfone described the redistricting plan as the path of “least resistance” during that meeting.
Within weeks, however, the direction changed. After Alfone announced her retirement, effective in July, Haber presented a second plan at the Feb. 19 board meeting recommending the closure of Leonardo and Navesink elementary schools and the repurposing of Bayshore Middle School.
The petition challenges the credibility of the consultant’s work, citing emails obtained through Open Public Records Act requests. One email, from business administrator Amy Doherty to Alfone, dated April 3, 2025, discusses paying Haber “$25k for this work – I think we should seriously consider it though – would lend support to our planning.”
Parents have questioned why payments were made months before any report was publicly released. According to the petition, no written report or formal deliverable was released to the public until January 2026. The filing alleges the district “didn’t pay for an expert, it paid for an advocate and pointed him in a predetermined direction.”
The petition also cites a Feb. 2, 2026, email from Doherty to Haber that appears to reference analyzing school closures. “I think we also need to have the work that was done related to the objective of closing two schools, whether it’s a more disruptive plan or of the conclusion is that closing two schools would not be your recommendation,” the email read.
The filing argues that the message shows district leaders had already focused on closures before the consultant’s analysis was finalized.
“When placed in the context of her sloppily redacted e-mail of April 3, 2025, Doherty’s February 2, 2026, e-mail makes it beyond clear that she, Superintendent Alfone, along with the Aveta Five (the five board members that voted in favor for school closures) had looked at nothing else but school closures and were merely trying to create the requisite justification for it,” the petition states.
The petition further claims Haber “dutifully marched to Doherty’s drum,” later presenting a plan recommending closure, a reversal it calls “illogical.”
Parents also argue the closures could lead to overcrowding at Thorne and Thompson middle schools. The filing says projected enrollment could exceed 1,000 students at buildings designed to hold about 930.
The petition raises additional questions about a document known as the Haber Closure Report dated Feb. 17, 2026. According to the filing, the report was not publicly released before the Feb. 19 board meeting. At that meeting, when questioned by parents, Haber said, “I didn’t do that report, but I think it’s least disruptive,” raising questions about who prepared the document.
The parents are asking the commissioner to investigate district spending, including payments to Haber, and to block further closure actions until a new superintendent is appointed.
The petition also alleges discussions about school closures occurred in executive session in violation of New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act and argues the district failed to complete required analyses, including traffic, safety and facility studies, before the vote.
Once formally served, the district will have about 20 days to respond to the petition. The commissioner of education may decide the case directly or refer it to the Office of Administrative Law for a hearing before an administrative law judge.
The parents have said they may pursue judicial review in the appellate court if necessary.
The BOE’s next meeting has been rescheduled to March 24, when the tentative 2026-27 school year budget is expected to be presented.
Meanwhile, the community group Save Middletown Schools has planned a rally at 9 a.m. Sunday, March 15, at Croydon Hall to protest the school closures.
The article originally appeared in the March 12 – 18, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
