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SCHOOLS-CLOSING Aug-15-2005 (900 words) With photos. xxxn
Inner-city Catholic schools at crossroads after recent closings
By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- At the end of this past school year, Catholic schools in Chicago, Brooklyn, N.Y., Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Boston and several other cities, closed their doors for good as church officials pointed to declining enrollments, changing demographics and overall lack of funds needed to keep the schools functioning.
Students left with tearful farewells, armed with advice about nearby Catholic schools. Teachers and administrators, also hard hit by the closings, suddenly had to scramble for new jobs, many of them after decades of working in the same school.
The Archdioceses of Chicago and Detroit closed 18 schools and the Diocese of Brooklyn closed 19. Initially, both Chicago and Brooklyn planned to close more, but the number was reduced when a handful of schools came up with additional funding. Other dioceses closed a smaller number of schools, but even a few closings had an impact on local communities.
In the Diocese of Rochester, N.Y. -- where four schools closed and seven were consolidated -- students and faculty at one of the closing schools, Sacred Heart Cathedral School in Rochester, bid tearful farewells to each other June 17.
The school principal, Monette Mahoney, said she felt a tremendous loss, even though 85 percent of the students were planning to attend other Catholic schools in the fall and she would be principal at another Catholic school.
For many of the children, Sacred Heart has been a constant in their life, she told the Catholic Courier, Rochester's diocesan newspaper.
Likewise, Eileen Preston, principal of St. John the Evangelist in Greece, N.Y., said 90 percent of her students were planning to attend Catholic schools in the fall. She described the school closing ceremony as "very emotional" with students sobbing when they boarded buses at the end of the last day.
The National Catholic Educational Association in Washington does not have the data available yet for the upcoming school year, but its report for the 2004-05 school year noted that across the country 173 schools were consolidated or closed while 37 schools opened.
NCEA officials have commissioned the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, located at Georgetown University, to specifically look at the issue of urban Catholic school closings. The study is to be released this fall.
Karen Ristau, NCEA's new president, knows firsthand about school closings: The school she headed as president for the past three years, Immaculate Heart of Mary High School in Westchester, Ill., closed its doors this summer.
Ristau told Catholic News Service Aug. 12 that there are no simple reasons for the wave of school closings. For some, closing is the result of financial trouble or changing demographics; in other cases a lack of leadership or strategic planning has forced closure.
A statement released this summer by the U.S. bishops, called "Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium," notes that more Catholic schools have closed than have opened in the past 15 years.
According to the statement, there are currently 7,799 elementary and secondary schools, about 10 percent fewer than there were 15 years ago. It also notes that Catholic schools have suffered a net enrollment loss of 170,000 students since 1990 and that the average tuition costs have more than doubled.
The statement says most Catholic school closings in the past 15 years have occurred in inner-city and urban and rural areas. Of the 400 new schools opened in that time, most were in growing suburbs.
"In cities and rural areas, Catholic schools are often the only opportunity for economically disadvantaged young people to receive an education of quality," it said.
"Wherever possible," it said, "Catholic schools should remain available and accessible in all areas of a diocese for children who are from poor and middle-class families who face major economic challenges. In addition, Catholic schools should be available to students who are not Catholic and who wish to attend them."
Jesuit Father Joseph O'Keefe said he is curious to see what kind of action the bishops' document will bring about for inner-city schools.
The priest, interim dean of the Lynch School of Education at Jesuit-run Boston College, has been studying urban Catholic education for years. He led a team of the university's researchers in conducting a study published in 2004 by the NCEA on "Sustaining the Legacy: Inner-city Catholic Elementary Schools in the United States."
He stressed that Catholic school officials need to remember the mission of a preferential option for the poor and provide "places for people of little or no faith to encounter Christ."
But, he said, some church officials think Catholic schools should primarily be for children from Catholic families.
Father O'Keefe said the traditional Catholic school organization model has lacked "strategic thinking and has been very haphazard."
The setup creates a "survival of the fittest" system, he told CNS, so schools with the least amount of resources and students end up closing their doors.
Amid the continuing number of closings, the priest said he sees glimmers of hope in areas where people are trying innovative ways to keep city schools open, such as the Diocese of Memphis, Tenn., where previously closed schools are reopening. As he sees it, people need to look at places that are bucking the closing trend and find out "why they are surviving."
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Contributing to this story was Rob Cullivan in Rochester
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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