Middletown School District Still Waiting For Facilities Study From Ross Haber & Associates

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — A facilities/boundaries study the Middletown school district paid a consultant $24,000 to do has still not been completed. Superintendent Jessica Alfone said this week she hopes to get the study back in January, five months after the consultant promised he would deliver it.

Last spring, the Middletown school district paid Ross Haber & Associates $24,000 to do a facility/boundary analysis of the Middletown school district. Haber's task was to examine which neighborhoods send students to which schools, how many students and staff are in each school and the age, use and condition of all the buildings in the district.

The information is vital, as the school district plans to use the study data if redistricting happens, and should the district decide any Middletown school buildings "are aging and could be taken offline" — meaning closing a school, Alfone previously said.

Haber & Associates was supposed to present the study in September. By late October, it still wasn't done. At the Oct. 30 school board meeting, a parent asked where the study was, and Alfone said she was still waiting for it. Haber said he would give it to her "in two weeks," she said at the time.

Mid-November rolled around. Board member Joe Fitzgerald asked about it.

"Ross Haber said after Thanksgiving," Alfone said. "That is what his last message was when the district reached out to him."

It is now Dec. 17. Patch asked Alfone where the study is, and what's the delay.

"Due to the size and scope of the project, the study has taken longer than anticipated," Alfone said Wednesday. "The district has been routinely checking in with the vendor to obtain progress updates and provide information, when requested, in a timely manner. Mr. Haber and his associates are confident that we will have this report in the near future, however, with winter recess approaching, we realistically can anticipate analyzing and sharing these results with the school community in the new year."

At Tuesday night's school board meeting, Alfone said the district will get "re-engaged with strategic planning once we come back in January. We'll have the data from the Haber study we believe at this point. And then we can begin to move forward with our strategic plan."

Haber did not return a request for comment for this article.

Middletown School District Still Waiting For Results Of Redistricting Study It Paid Consultant To Do (Nov. 26)

Middletown School District Still Waiting For Facilities Study (Nov. 5)