Menorah Glow-Car Party brings Hanukkah celebration to Freehold
Menachem Drelich’s Menorah Glow-Car Party makes a stop in the Freehold Market Yard parking lot.
- Jackson School District has agreed to sell the Christa McAuliffe Middle School for $40 million.
- The school is located on South Hope Chapel Road and its property is spread across 38 acres.
- Beth Medrash Govoha, the largest Orthodox Jewish school outside of Israel, is intending to purchase the property.
JACKSON — The largest Orthodox Jewish school outside of Israel plans to purchase Jackson’s Christa McAuliffe Middle School.
The Jackson Board of Education approved a resolution on Dec. 17 to accept the sale of the middle school to Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood for $40 million.
Beth Medrash Govoha has more than 9,000 students in undergraduate and graduate courses and is focused on Talmudic study.
Jackson School District officials initially hoped to sell the 126,305-square-foot middle school and its nearly 38 acres of property on South Hope Chapel Road for $54 million. However, in November, district officials announced they were dropping that minimum price to $44.4 million.
The school district has struggled with declining state aid over the past decade and a shrinking student population. As a result, the district has consolidated its two high schools into one and sold two of its school buildings: McAuliffe and Sylvia Rosenauer Elementary School.
Bais Yaakov of Jackson, an arm of the Lakewood-based Bais Faiga School, the all-girls’ component of the Lakewood Cheder School, purchased Rosenauer Elementary in March for $13.1 million.
“This was not a decision made lightly,” Superintendent Nicole Pormilli said in a news release. “Christa McAuliffe Middle School holds tremendous meaning for our students, staff, and families. However, due to significant funding losses, the sale of this property represents a responsible and necessary step for the district and for Jackson taxpayers.”
Between the 2014-15 and 2023-24 school years, Jackson School District saw a nearly 13% decline in enrollment, from more than 8,700 students a decade ago. The district now has fewer than 7,000, officials said earlier this year.
At the same time, state aid to Jackson public schools has fallen by millions of dollars. Most recently, officials faced a $5.2 million state aid cut (equivalent to a 17% decline) for the 2025-26 school year.
The McAuliffe school sale will help close that funding gap and prevent deep cuts to various programs and services, district officials said.
“Without this difficult move, our district would be looking very, very different right now,” Pormilli said. “We hope the community can understand that.”
Jackson School District also faces another substantial fiscal hurdle: the responsibility to transport the growing population of the township’s private and non-public school students to their educational facilities, or pay aid-in-lieu of transportation at a cost of $1,177 per child.
About one in every two Jackson children attend religious, private and non-public schools.
More than $10 million of funds from the McAuliffe sale will be applied to the 2025-26 school budget, according to school officials. The Board of Education has yet to decide how to use the remaining money.
“While we need these funds to continue to operate our district, there remains uncertainty about the future of the state funding formula that caused our multi-year state aid shortfalls in the first place,” school district Business Administrator Daniel Baginski said in a statement. “We need systemic change to a state aid mechanism that has caused such a tremendous deficit in the district and others.”
Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers education and the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than 17 years. Reach her at aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.