4 Top Takeaways From Dec. 17 Middletown School Board Meeting

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown school board held its final meeting of 2024 on Tuesday night, and here are the four biggest takeaways from the meeting:

— The Middletown school district was determined to be "very good" in an assessment done by an outside firm that examined school security. The company said there are several areas where the district needs to improve security, but the Board did not elaborate on what those areas are.

— A big announcement is Middletown will no longer require midterm and final exams in all courses. This was announced by superintendent Jessica Alfone. She said prior to this, students had to prepare for as many as eight midterms and eight finals per semester. It was too much, she said, after getting feedback from students and parents. Students will now only have to take midterms and finals in core classes (classes needed to graduate), and higher-level classes.

— Also, 11th-grade students with an average of 90 percent of above will now be exempt from their final exams, Alfone announced. This was a privilege previously reserved only for high school seniors.

— Monmouth County is still moving forward with its plans to purchase Port Monmouth Elementary School and turn it into an indoor swim center, which will be open to the public and swim leagues. The county already committed to pay the Middletown school district $2.5 million to buy the school, and the school board agreed to that price. The sale should go through this spring.

Watch the Dec. 17 Middletown school board meeting in its entirety; the first chunk of the meeting is black because the board is in executive session. We don't know what they were talking about: