The Jackson School District is putting another of its schools on the market, citing steep budget cuts and falling enrollment as it struggles to balance its finances.
Officials announced this week that the district will begin accepting bids for the Christa McAuliffe Middle School and its 37.5-acre property on South Hope Chapel Road. The minimum asking price is set at $54.5 million.
The move comes just months after the district sold Sylvia Rosenauer Elementary School for $13.1 million to Bais Yaakov of Jackson (Bais Faiga).
District Superintendent Nicole Pormilli said the McAuliffe school is a well-equipped facility that has long served the community.
“Christa McAuliffe Middle School is a beautiful, well-planned school with every amenity you could want,” Pormilli said in a news release. “We were truly heartbroken to be selling it, however, this move is part of the difficult but necessary restructuring process for our district.”
The building includes 126,305 square feet of space, plus five modular classrooms totaling another 3,500 square feet. Athletic facilities, administrative offices, and a cafetorium with a full kitchen are also part of the property.
The district has lost nearly 13 percent of its student population over the last decade, dropping from more than 8,700 students in the 2014–15 school year to under 7,000 today. Roughly half of Jackson’s children now attend private, religious, or nonpublic schools, most of them in neighboring Lakewood.
At the same time, state aid has steadily eroded. The district lost $5.2 million in state funding for the 2025–26 school year alone, a 17 percent decline, forcing officials to cut more than 300 staff positions in six years.
The Christa McAuliffe property sits near the Lakewood border in a part of Ocean County that has seen rapid housing growth. Most of the site is zoned for public and educational facilities, though two parcels are zoned for residential use.
