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Hopefully this is a precursor to shutting down everything Catholic.
My nephew attends St. John's the Evangelist.
After years of struggling with declining enrollment, the Archdiocese of San Antonio announced that two of its 44 Catholic schools will not open next fall.
St. Joseph Catholic School, which serves 111 students on the city’s South Side, will close after the 2008-09 school year. St. John the Evangelist School, which has a current enrollment of 134, will consolidate into St. Mary Magdalen, located nearby in the North Central part of town.
About 25 teachers and administrators at St. Joseph and St. John could lose their jobs next fall, said Bishop Oscar Cantú, and staff will help them prepare their resumes to get hired elsewhere.
“The situation of the Catholic schools has changed tremendously over the past 50 years,” Cantú said. “Particularly difficult has been the maintaining of Catholic schools in the inner cities of metropolitan areas across the nation.”
Kathy Corley, who graduated from St. Joseph in 1983, said she’s had a hunch the school was closing since January. That’s when she expected to receive a re-enrollment packet for her son, now in Kindergarten at the school.
“There’s always been talk, and the population around here has gone down quite a bit,” Corley said. “It’s disappointing; I was looking forward to him building the friendships that I did in Catholic school.”
When she was in school, Corley said she remembers having two classes of about 25 students per grade, and the entire student body would pose in a panoramic picture each year. There are 14 students in her son’s class, she said.
This year, 13,717 students attend the Archdiocese of San Antonio’s schools, down from 14,303 students in the 2007-08 school year, according to Sister Carla Marie Lusch, superintendent of Catholic schools here.
Part of that decline, Lusch said, is due to the loss of a $50 million private voucher program funded by Dr. James Leininger that paid tuition for about 1,000 students in local Catholic schools. The program ended with the 2007-08 school year.
And while two schools near the city’s center will close their doors after this year, the $10 million John Paul II High School will open next fall to 75 students from Converse, New Braunfels, Schertz and Seguin, and an elementary school will open next fall in Jourdanton, Cantú said.
The migration of families out of urban areas nationwide, combined with higher payroll costs and fewer families that can afford the $3,000 to $8,000 annual tuition, has caused dioceses across the country to make difficult decisions.
According to Brian Gray, a spokesman for the National Catholic Education Association, enrollment in Catholic schools nation-wide dropped about 3 percent from last school year to this school year, down to about 1 million students.
“The diocese of New York City, Brooklyn, and a number of others have already announced closings,” said Gray, “but we won’t know for sure how many will close until school starts in the fall.”
St. Joseph Catholic School was founded by the Franciscan Friars in 1950, and hit its enrollment peak with 310 students in 1989. Once neighboring Kelly Air Force Base closed, school staff struggled to maintain a healthy student body.
In 1942, St. Mary Magdalen School was opened and expanded quickly to serve more than 970 students, according to Archdiocese of San Antonio spokesman Deacon Pat Rodgers. After 15 years, St. John the Evangelist School opened nearby to handle additional students and hit its enrollment peak of 329 students in 1993.
The consolidation will cause St. Mary Magdalen’s student body to grow from 175 to at least 250, Rodgers said.
Schools
Hopefully this is a precursor to shutting down everything Catholic.
You mean, God didn't like them anymore?
You know, because he's all powerful and . I would think he would have the power to back up his peeps.
Well, maybe he just doesn't like his peeps anymore.
I went to a Catholic elementary/high school, but they stopped giving a about Catholic enrollment in our school board in the early 90s. Probably over 70% of the school was Protestant/Muslim/Hindu.
Royals Por Vida !!!!
God hates Catholics.
there all closing in england too.best thing about going to one was there wasnt any muslims/imigrants...worst thing was all the caining that went on , also them nuns were evil fcukers.
lol @ theists
Private schools at every level are going to be hurt badly by this economy. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
When you say "evil ers" . . .
God hates the economy.
Considering the alternative for some of these kids, you might not be so jubilant.
God hates kids.
SAISD wants to shut down Burbank H.S in a few years.
And NISD can not build school fast enough...
same reasons all of the 'super churches' are springing up along and outside of loop 1604.
There's no money in the inner city. I'm surprised schools like Central Catholic and St Anthonys are still going.
i went to central and my folks spent a load of money there......but if you've ever been, you can't tell what they spend it on...
Alumni- and Central being the only all boys one left
what year?
private inner city school>>>public inner city school. Lord knows ghetto people hate paying for
well with a declining population and not many people havin kids, what do you expect, the highschool i went to in the past is closing down and so 11 of its other schools under the same parish.......alot of past students and families in the area were pissed about the number of school closures cause they all think the churches/parishes are closing down these schools to sell the premises cause its worth alot of money and theres been alot of property development.....
why? Because of their location? I know most of the Central kids come from the North side. Central Catholic is a feeder school for St. Mary's too, or at least I assume it still is.
They continue to go there and grow due to a) tradition b) education
It is what it is. And St. Anthony's is owned by Incarnate Word, so thats all that needs to be said there.
Southside Catholic schools have been in trouble for over a decade. That itself isnt something you can blame the current economic situations on when the trend has been ongoing for 10 + years now.
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