The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn announced the biggest round of school closings in the history of the city's Catholic education system today, citing plummeting enrollment, escalating costs and the shifting demographics of neighborhoods across Brooklyn and Queens.
Twenty-two Catholic elementary schools in the two boroughs, with a total enrollment of more than 4,000 students, will shut their doors for good at the end of the school year, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio announced. The decision slashes the number of schools in the diocese by 15 percent.
The schools, like Transfiguration in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Ascension in Elmhurst, Queens, have been cornerstones of their neighborhoods for decades, some for more than a century, and have provided a critical refuge and stepping-stone for children - Catholic and otherwise - in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.
But the schools lost an average of one-third of their students in the last five years, diocese officials said, as the demographics of the city's Catholic school population skewed poorer and the deepening shortage of nuns and priests drove up salary costs for lay teachers and administrators.
Officials pledged that all the displaced students would be able to find seats in the remaining 125 schools in the diocese (though they could make no such promise to the 250 teachers who will be laid off). But there was no denying the damage to the diocese.
"It's wrenching to see this happen," said Frank DeRosa, a spokesman for Bishop DiMarzio. "We know how much good has been accomplished in those schools for so many students, by dedicated teachers, for so many years. But the reality of the situation now requires this kind of action."
The decision does not affect schools in Manhattan, the Bronx or Staten Island, which operate under the auspices of the Archdiocese of New York. The archdiocese is the process of reorganizing its system, a process that is expected to produce some school closings as well.
The news of the closings was written in tears on the ash-smudged faces of children across Brooklyn and Queens, who with their parents flocked around reporters and vowed to fight to the end for their schools.
"I was devastated," said Hyacinth Campbell, a retired communications worker who came to St. Thomas Aquinas School on the industrial fringe of Park Slope, Brooklyn, to pick up her daughters. "But what hurt me most to my heart is that my children started to cry. Where do you find children in any school anywhere crying about a school closing?"
While there are plenty of empty desks at other schools in the diocese, parents pointed out that those schools were sometimes a neighborhood or more away. As an alternative to St. Thomas Aquinas, the diocese recommends Holy Name School, more than a mile distant. Some parents will send their children to the local public school, but in many parts of the city the public schools are already full, so some children may face a long commute whether they attend public or private school.
Outside St. Virgilius school in Broad Channel, Queens, the smallest school in the diocese, some parents said that the announcement augured not just the closing of the school but the end of the tiny community's parish. "The basis of a church is family," said Erica Rogers, 32, whose oldest child attends the school's kindergarten. "If you don't have a school, how will the parish survive?"
For years, the Catholic church in New York City has balked at closing schools, even as they have become increasing drains on the church's shaky finances, because of the inevitable outcry the closings would prompt in communities. The church's previous leaders in New York and Brooklyn, Cardinal John O'Connor and Bishop Thomas Daily, respectively, managed to fight off pressure to close schools during their long tenures.
But the forces arrayed against the schools kept piling up-the steady drop in the number of nuns and priests, who taught school for pauper's salaries; the pay disparity between public and lay Catholic school teachers; the flight of much of the city's Irish- and Italian-American Catholic middle class to the suburbs; the diverting of private money to charter schools and other nonreligious institutions.
While the number of Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens has remained relatively stable in recent years, more and more of them are recent immigrants from Latin America who cannot afford even the modest tuitions at Catholic schools, which average about $3,000 a year.
"In the past," Mr. DeRosa said, "families with three or four kids would send all of them to Catholic schools. Now it's maybe one or two. The infant baptism rate has gone down, too, and that would be a potential feeder into the school system."
Following are the affected schools in the Brooklyn Diocese:
In Brooklyn:
All Saints, 113 Throop Ave.
Transfiguration, 250 Hooper St.
Holy Innocents, 249 E. 17th St.
Our Lady of Refuge, 1807 Ocean Ave.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 1501 Hendrickson (Flatlands)
St. John Cantius, 639 Blake Ave.
Our Lady of Lourdes, 11 Desales Place
St. Finbar's, 1825 Bath Ave.
Sacred Hearts-St. Stephens, 135 Summit St.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 211 Eighth St. (Park Slope)
St. Michael's, 4222 Fourth Ave.
St. Catherine of Alexandria, 1053 41st St.
Resurrection, 2335 Gerristsen Ave.
In Queens:
St. Theresa, 50-15 44th St.
Queen of Angels, 41-12 44th St.
Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians, 70-31 48th Ave.
Ascension, 86-37 53rd Ave.
St. Stanislaus Bishop, 90-01 101st Ave.
Holy Cross, 56-01 61st St.
St. Pius X, 147-65 249th St.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 23-15 Newtown Ave.
St. Virgilius, 16 Noel Rd.
Ann Farmer and Michael Brick contributed reporting for this article.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/e...e4a4c&ei=5053&partner=NYTHEADLINES_HP (registration required)
I feel bad & sad about these children and teachers :/
Twenty-two Catholic elementary schools in the two boroughs, with a total enrollment of more than 4,000 students, will shut their doors for good at the end of the school year, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio announced. The decision slashes the number of schools in the diocese by 15 percent.
The schools, like Transfiguration in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Ascension in Elmhurst, Queens, have been cornerstones of their neighborhoods for decades, some for more than a century, and have provided a critical refuge and stepping-stone for children - Catholic and otherwise - in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.
But the schools lost an average of one-third of their students in the last five years, diocese officials said, as the demographics of the city's Catholic school population skewed poorer and the deepening shortage of nuns and priests drove up salary costs for lay teachers and administrators.
Officials pledged that all the displaced students would be able to find seats in the remaining 125 schools in the diocese (though they could make no such promise to the 250 teachers who will be laid off). But there was no denying the damage to the diocese.
"It's wrenching to see this happen," said Frank DeRosa, a spokesman for Bishop DiMarzio. "We know how much good has been accomplished in those schools for so many students, by dedicated teachers, for so many years. But the reality of the situation now requires this kind of action."
The decision does not affect schools in Manhattan, the Bronx or Staten Island, which operate under the auspices of the Archdiocese of New York. The archdiocese is the process of reorganizing its system, a process that is expected to produce some school closings as well.
The news of the closings was written in tears on the ash-smudged faces of children across Brooklyn and Queens, who with their parents flocked around reporters and vowed to fight to the end for their schools.
"I was devastated," said Hyacinth Campbell, a retired communications worker who came to St. Thomas Aquinas School on the industrial fringe of Park Slope, Brooklyn, to pick up her daughters. "But what hurt me most to my heart is that my children started to cry. Where do you find children in any school anywhere crying about a school closing?"
While there are plenty of empty desks at other schools in the diocese, parents pointed out that those schools were sometimes a neighborhood or more away. As an alternative to St. Thomas Aquinas, the diocese recommends Holy Name School, more than a mile distant. Some parents will send their children to the local public school, but in many parts of the city the public schools are already full, so some children may face a long commute whether they attend public or private school.
Outside St. Virgilius school in Broad Channel, Queens, the smallest school in the diocese, some parents said that the announcement augured not just the closing of the school but the end of the tiny community's parish. "The basis of a church is family," said Erica Rogers, 32, whose oldest child attends the school's kindergarten. "If you don't have a school, how will the parish survive?"
For years, the Catholic church in New York City has balked at closing schools, even as they have become increasing drains on the church's shaky finances, because of the inevitable outcry the closings would prompt in communities. The church's previous leaders in New York and Brooklyn, Cardinal John O'Connor and Bishop Thomas Daily, respectively, managed to fight off pressure to close schools during their long tenures.
But the forces arrayed against the schools kept piling up-the steady drop in the number of nuns and priests, who taught school for pauper's salaries; the pay disparity between public and lay Catholic school teachers; the flight of much of the city's Irish- and Italian-American Catholic middle class to the suburbs; the diverting of private money to charter schools and other nonreligious institutions.
While the number of Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens has remained relatively stable in recent years, more and more of them are recent immigrants from Latin America who cannot afford even the modest tuitions at Catholic schools, which average about $3,000 a year.
"In the past," Mr. DeRosa said, "families with three or four kids would send all of them to Catholic schools. Now it's maybe one or two. The infant baptism rate has gone down, too, and that would be a potential feeder into the school system."
Following are the affected schools in the Brooklyn Diocese:
In Brooklyn:
All Saints, 113 Throop Ave.
Transfiguration, 250 Hooper St.
Holy Innocents, 249 E. 17th St.
Our Lady of Refuge, 1807 Ocean Ave.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 1501 Hendrickson (Flatlands)
St. John Cantius, 639 Blake Ave.
Our Lady of Lourdes, 11 Desales Place
St. Finbar's, 1825 Bath Ave.
Sacred Hearts-St. Stephens, 135 Summit St.
St. Thomas Aquinas, 211 Eighth St. (Park Slope)
St. Michael's, 4222 Fourth Ave.
St. Catherine of Alexandria, 1053 41st St.
Resurrection, 2335 Gerristsen Ave.
In Queens:
St. Theresa, 50-15 44th St.
Queen of Angels, 41-12 44th St.
Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians, 70-31 48th Ave.
Ascension, 86-37 53rd Ave.
St. Stanislaus Bishop, 90-01 101st Ave.
Holy Cross, 56-01 61st St.
St. Pius X, 147-65 249th St.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 23-15 Newtown Ave.
St. Virgilius, 16 Noel Rd.
Ann Farmer and Michael Brick contributed reporting for this article.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/e...e4a4c&ei=5053&partner=NYTHEADLINES_HP (registration required)
I feel bad & sad about these children and teachers :/
