By Michelle Martin
Staff writer
Three new Catholic elementary schools will open in Chicago and 14 city and suburban schools will close this summer as part of a plan to make the archdiocese’s school system stronger and more efficient, if a bit smaller.
The plan, in development since the arrival last year of new schools Superintendent Nicholas M. Wolsonovich, also calls for the consolidation of two North Side schools, along with related religious education and adult formation programs.
The changes come in response to changing demographics throughout the archdiocese, said Wolsonovich.
“Parishes and populations are always changing, and we as an organization have to adapt to those changes,” he said. “That means the schools have to change, too.”
Archdiocesan officials announced the changes Jan. 14 after working with all schools to assess their viability, based on criteria such as their Catholic identity, enrollment pattern, financial resources, academics and availability of nearby Catholic schools.
Many of the schools slated to close have deficits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “If we had all the money in the world, we wouldn’t have to close any schools, but that isn’t the case,” Wolsonovich said. “These schools have a rich legacy of service to their communities over a long period and provided excellent faith-based education to generations of students. But today’s fiscal realities mean they cannot remain open.”
He said efforts are being made to accommodate all the children and teachers affected.
In fiscal 2001, schools across the archdiocese lost $49.6 million. The archdiocese provided $9 million in grants to schools—an investment that will continue at $6 million a year. In addition, the Big Shoulders Fund is providing $2.5 million in operating grants to inner-city schools this year, along with $6 million in scholarships, Wolsonovich said.
Next school year, the archdiocese expects to have 249 elementary schools, down from 261 this year. The Office for Catholic Schools also plans to look at feasibility studies for opening more elementary and high schools in Lake County and in the Southwest suburbs, and to look at expanding existing schools in Chicago neighborhoods that are growing.
The news about the school closings brought back memories of 1990 and 1991, when, facing a dire financial situation, the archdiocese closed 40 parishes and schools. But the number of schools being closed this year pales in comparison, especially with the announcement that three new schools will open.
To help remaining schools stay viable, the Office for Catholic Schools hopes to get more schools to use the “Tuition Covenant” plan, a two-step process that bases tuition on the actual cost of educating each student, and provides financial aid for families that need it.
“Parents tell us cost is the number one reason they do not send their children to Catholic schools,” Wolsonovich said. “Parents also tell us they believe that a Catholic school education is a good investment in their children.”
As part of the vision being developed for archdiocesan schools, new “school advancement councils” in each of the archdiocese’s six vicariates will work to ensure the vitality and excellence of the schools, and the Office of Catholic Schools will be reorganized to help the schools better meet their spiritual, academic and financial objectives.
To keep Catholic schools vital, the archdiocese must do its best to steward its resources carefully while keeping tuition affordable, he said. That means increased sharing, planning and managing by school leadership at all levels, and, in some cases, looking at new models for Catholic schools to meet the needs of students of many races, faiths and backgrounds.
“This will mean creating inter-parish schools, as well as some sponsored by religious congregations and the archdiocese,” Wolsonovich said. “I’m sure there have been many examples of collaboration in the past.”
The three new schools will serve diverse communities on Chicago’s Near North, West and Southeast sides.
One of the new schools, Immaculate Conception at 8739 S. Exchange St., has been operating as a primary-grade campus of nearby St. Michael School (South Shore) for the past three years, starting with kindergarten and first grade and adding a grade each year.
St. Michael’s principal, Dominican Sister Judine Hilbing, will continue to lead both schools.
“We’re very excited that this has happened,” Hilbing said. “It’s what we envisioned from the beginning.”
Both neighborhoods have a high demand for Catholic schools, Hilbing said. The Immaculate Conception campus is 100 percent Hispanic, 100 percent Catholic and filled to capacity with an average of 25 students in each of its four grades. St. Michael’s 319 pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students are a mix of African American, Hispanic and other racial and ethnic groups, she said.
Tuition at both schools for next year will range on a sliding scale from $175 to $1,250, with most families paying about $500 per student. The school can afford to keep tuition low because of a variety of private grants and scholarships, Hilbing said.
The De La Salle Christian Brothers will open a new middle school in the former Our Lady Help of Christians School at 819 N. Leamington Ave. The congregation already operates the similar San Miguel middle school at 48th Street and Damen Avenue. As at San Miguel, where small, focused classes are the plan, sixth- through eighth-grade students will be in class in the new school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. September through July. Each class of 25 will have three teachers—all religious or lay volunteers. Tuition will be $300 a year, although the cost to educate each student will be $5,500.
The third new school, at Immaculate Conception Parish, 1413 North Park Ave., will open in the fall to preschool and kindergarten students only. But the pastor, Father Patrick Lee, said he hopes to add a grade each year. The new school will use the tuition covenant, with the mandate that 30 percent of the students receive scholarships to make sure the school attracts a diverse group of students, Lee said.
The day the schools plan was announced was bittersweet for Lee, who also serves as pastor of St. Joseph Parish on North Orleans.
St. Joseph School, which for decades has served people from the Cabrini-Green area, is among the schools closing.
The demolition of public housing units helped lead to the school’s demise, Lee said. Enrollment has dwindled over the last four years. This year, St. Joseph opened with 99 students; eight have left as their families were forced to move. More than half of the remaining students travel from the South and West sides and suburbs, continuing a legacy begun by their parents or grandparents who were educated at St. Joseph. Only two of the students are Catholic.
Preschoolers and kindergartners from St. Joseph will be welcome at Immaculate Conception, Lee said, and he and the school staff will do their best to place the others in Catholic schools near St. Joseph or near their homes.
Wolsonovich acknowledged that closing a school is painful for those involved. To help the process run smoothly, pastors and principals were informed in the middle of the week before the announcement and advised to tell teachers on Thursday, Jan. 10, and send letters to parents on Jan. 11.
But at least one school, students arrived home from school Jan. 11 in tears after hearing the news from teachers. The mother of two daughters said the older girl, a seventh-grader who is concerned about having to start a new school in eighth grade, was trying to comfort her sister, a second-grader.
Parents at some schools gathered Jan. 14 and in the following days to try to fight the closings, but archdiocesan spokesman Jim Dwyer said such efforts probably would not help.
“These decisions were not made lightly,” he said. “As far as I know, they’re final.”
Principals at St. Ambrose School on the South Side and St. Clare of Montefalco School on the Southwest Side said they are moving on by trying to help their school families find other Catholic schools and to help their children feel safe.
Josephine Tate, principal at St. Ambrose, said the school stopped offering fifth- through eighth-grade classes this year because it could not fill them. At the time, she knew she needed 20 preschoolers and 25 students each in kindergarten through fourth grade—all paying the full $2,900 tuition—to make a go of it.
When the biggest class was 21, and most of the 77 families needed some kind of scholarship, Tate said, she knew the school was likely to be closed.
“If the enrollment is not up to par, then the resources aren’t there,” she said. “We have a good school here. This school has done so much to help so many children.”
It will be hardest, she said, on fifth-graders from St. Ambrose who now attend St. Gelasius, which is also slated to close at the end of the year.
Natalie Lamoureux, in her first year as principal at St. Clare of Montefalco, said she had been there about a month when archdiocesan inquiries about the school’s enrollment of about 200 raised her concern for the future.
Now that official word has come, Lamoureux said, the school will work to help place the students and teachers, “and we will continue to celebrate.”
“We will still celebrate Catholic schools week, and we will celebrate 92 years of St. Clare of Montefalco School,” she said. “We will have the last graduation, and the last First Communion, and the last eighth-grade play, and we will do our best to make it memorable.”
