DECISIONS REACHED

ON TWO SCHOOLS

Parents of students in two parish elementary schools---St. Charles Borromeo in Brooklyn Heights and Presentation in Jamaica---were informed this week that their school will close officially at the end of the academic year in June.

In the case of St. Charles Borromeo School, however, a serious fire in the school building Feb. 6 required an immediate closing. By last Tuesday, the 133 students had missed a week of classes.

“The principal concern was for the welfare of the pupils and for their return to their classroom work as soon as possible,” said Msgr. Michael J. Hardiman, Vicar for Education, after visiting the damaged building. Parents were in the process of enrolling their children in other, mostly neighboring schools since Tuesday.

The requests to close the two schools were presented to and approved by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio. Pressures on each parish to provide financial support for their respective schools and small student enrollment were significant factors calculated into the decisions not to reopen in the fall.

Father Christopher M. O’Connor, pastor of Presentation, said that Immaculate Conception School in Jamaica will be able to accommodate the students from Presentation School. The latter has 155 students in grades one to eight. Twenty-one will graduate in June.

Presentation‘s principal, Dorothea Y. Breen, has been retained by Immaculate Conception’s pastor, Passionist Father Thomas Joyce, to become Immaculate Conception’s principal in August. Father O’Connor said he will teach religion there and take part in school liturgies.

“This decision was not an easy one,” Father O’Connor said. He and the principal “have been meeting regularly for more than two years trying to find ways to improve and save our school,” he said. Included in the discussions were diocesan officials and the diocesan schools office.

The enrollment did not increase despite strong recruitment efforts by the pastor and principal. Diocesan education officials consider a kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school with 250 or fewer students to be “at risk” of surviving three to five years.

At St. Charles Borromeo, the school has recorded a steady decline in enrollment in the past six years. In the past two years alone, the number of students has dropped from 181 to 113.

The nearby schools that have offered seats to St. Charles Borromeo’s students include Queen of All Saints in Fort Greene, St. Francis Xavier, St. Saviour’s and Holy Name in Park Slope and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Kensington.

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2/13/07