 |
||
 |
||
|
|
|
|
||
|
ST. CLEMENT POPE SCHOOL TO CLOSE IN JUNE
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has accepted the recommendation of the Brooklyn Diocesan Task Force for Catholic Schools that St. Clement Pope School, South Ozone Park, close at the end of the academic year in June.
The decision was reached after a study of the school’s viability in view of a sharply declining enrollment and spiraling operational costs, said Dr. Thomas Chadzutko, the interim diocesan Superintendent of Schools, who heads the Task Force.
Parents, faculty and students were told of the closing this week. Father Joseph Diele, the pastor, was to announce it to parishioners at the weekend Masses.
Dr. Chadzutko said St. Clement Pope would be the only school to close this year.
Using the past five years as a barometer of the difficulties the school has faced, he noted that the student body has dropped from 342 to 194 in nursery to the eighth-grade. Because of the reduced enrollment, tuition was raised during the five years from $2,125 per year to $3,200 plus fees.
“Economic pressures on parents---and a strained economy---caused them to face increasing tuition costs which many could not support,” Dr. Chadzutko said. The result was $270,000 in uncollected tuition payments since 1999, he said.
Sacred Heart Brother Gary Humes, the principal, said “even with extensive fund-raising by parents” in the two years he has administered the school the financial shortfall could not be overcome.
Father Diele, the pastor since 2002, stated that the parish finance council was aware of the difficult straits the school was in. He alerted school parents and faculty that “the school is in trouble” at the beginning of the current school year.
With 25 eighth-graders scheduled to graduate in June, 169 students will attend other elementary schools next Fall. In order to develop procedures for placing them in other institutions, Dr. Chadzutko and Anthony Danile, the district superintendent, are scheduled to meet with the principals of seven neighboring parochial schools on March 30.
The parochial schools are expected to host open houses for the students and their parents on dates not yet determined. The student body is about 40 percent Catholic.
Dr. Chadzutko said the names of the 12-member faculty will be placed on a priority list for employment at other Catholics schools in the Diocese. “We will make every effort to assist them,” he said.
St. Clement Pope School opened in l929 with an enrollment of 1,025 students taught by 22 Amityville Dominican Sisters. The building will be used for parish activities, Father Diele said.
|
||