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Middletown Twp. Will Purchase Mater Dei High, Make It Town Park
MIDDLETOWN, NJ — On Thursday evening, St. Mary's Catholic church in Middletown confirmed a rumor that has been circulating through town this week: St. Mary's parish will sell the former Mater Dei High School building, and surrounding grounds, to Middletown Township. Middletown plans to buy the 20-acre property and turn it into a recreational park. The existing sports fields will be kept as is, said Mayor Tony Perry. The new park will be called Mater Dei Park. However — in what will likely be difficult news for many Middletown residents to hear — the Mater Dei school building itself will indeed be torn down. The entire property will be used for youth and adult recreational sports, said Mayor Tony Perry. The Township has no need for the aging former Catholic school building on site. "Plans call for the former high school building to be razed," confirmed St. Mary Mother of God in a press release. Interior demolition will begin very soon, as soon as the sale is completed, said the mayor. The building itself will be torn down this summer. None of these plans affect St. Mary's grammar school, which will still continue to operate as usual on site and which has a healthy enrollment of Middletown youngsters. The sale price is $11.75 million. However, an agreement made between Middletown and the county determined that Middletown will pay just 25 percent of that price (just under $3 million) and the county will pay the remaining 75 percent, over $8 million. Monmouth County will make this large purchase using tax dollars from the county's Open Space Trust Fund. It will be a Middletown town park, not a county park. The $11.75 million will go directly to St. Mary Mother of God Catholic church in Middletown. It will not go to the diocese in Trenton. That means the main Catholic church in Middletown has an $11.75-million check headed its way. This millions-of-dollars-cash infusion will be used to pay down debt service, parish maintenance, continue religious education and start a student endorsement fund to continue Catholic education in Middletown, said the St. Mary's pastor, Father Jeff Kegley. The largest portion of funding from the sale will go to the student endowment fund for Saint Mary School, which is operated by the parish and provides Catholic education for students from age 2 through eighth grade, said Kegley. Proceeds from the endowment will support long-term educational initiatives, he said. Remaining funding from the sale will be dedicated to the maintenance and upkeep of the parish and Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament Shrine, he said. “The decision to sell was not taken lightly, but we believe it is in the best interest of our parish and the broader community,” Father Kegley said. “It will secure our parish’s future and the mission for Catholic education in our town." None of this can be done without public input: On April 7, the proposal to buy Mater Dei will be introduced at a Township Committee meeting. There will be a public hearing April 28. Founded in 1961, Mater Dei was Middletown's longtime Catholic high school. Since the 1960s, it educated thousands of teenagers. Many in Middletown were heartbroken to see Mater Dei permanently close in 2022, but the Diocese of Trenton said enrollment had dwindled to a mere 220 students, and the school could not cover a $1-million yearly operating deficit. Since then, the Mater Dei building has had a ... colorful history. You can see the building and grounds immortalized forever when it was used as the filming location for the "Mean Girls" movie revival, which filmed at Mater Dei in March/April 2023. Then, St. Mary's tried to enter into an unusual arrangement last spring with College Achieve Public School (CAPS), a charter school in Neptune and Asbury Park. CAPS was going to rent the building from St. Mary's and bus 9th-12th graders up from Asbury Park to Middletown. CAPS was going to pay St. Mary's $30,000 a month in rent, plus a $150,000 sign-on bonus. But this bombshell Star Ledger report by reporter Matthew Stanmyre revealed that CAPS was paying its administrators exorbitant salaries, all in New Jersey taxpayer dollars: CAPS founder and CEO Michael Piscal was paid $697,528 a year. CAPS Paterson director Gemar Mills made $433,734 a year. Jodi McInerney, director of CAPS Asbury Park — who graduated from Red Bank Catholic — was paid $323,245. Stanmyre also reported CAPS manipulated a loophole for it basketball team, which pummeled the Shore Conference in the winter of 2023/'24: An NJSIAA rule allows students from outside of town if a charter school is not at full enrollment. CAPS-Asbury Park said it was not fully enrolled, and put 11 of the most highly ranked basketball players in the state on its '23/'24 team, from towns such as Trenton, Keyport, Newark and Irvington. Critics say CAPS deliberately recruited and stacked its team with out-of-town players. After that report, the Asbury Park school district sued CAPS, saying CAPS siphoned $1.4 million that should have gone to Asbury public schools by enrolling dozens of teenagers who live out of town. Out of 338 kids enrolled in CAPS-Asbury Park for the 2023-24 school year, Asbury Park BOE says they were only able to verify 53 actually live in Asbury Park. After that report, McInerney and her husband, principal Tim McInerney, both went on administrative leave. CAPS is currently being investigated by the state of New Jersey for possible misuse of taxpayer funds: The New Jersey Office of the Comptroller filed a subpoena in November 2024 seeking access to all of CAPS' contracts, lease agreements, spending documents, real estate transactions and financial documents, according to NJ.com and the Asbury Park Press. CAPS abandoned its plans to rent Mater Dei. Middletown Twp. never granted them a certificate of occupancy, anyway. The Catholic parish of Saint Mary was founded in Middletown in 1879 and currently counts more than 4,200 families as members of the church. Here's a history of when St. Mary's tried to rent Mater Dei to CAPS charter school: NJ Now Investigating CAPS Charter School, Which Wanted To Move Into Mater Dei (Feb. 2025) Lawmakers Want CAPS Investigated, As It Seeks Expansion To Middletown (May 2024) St. Mary's Plans To Bring Urban Charter School To Mater Dei Campus (April 2024) 'Mean Girls' Movie Musical Filming In Middletown In March And April (Feb. 2023)
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