Brooklyn Diocese Moves to Shut 14 Schools
By PAUL VITELLO and WINNIE HU
Published: January 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/nyregion/13close.html?_r=1
Where its parish schools once anchored the neighborhoods from which they drew students, changing demographics have made filling those schools more difficult. Though many new arrivals in the neighborhoods are Catholic, they tend to be poorer than those who have moved on, and less able to afford the average $3,500 tuition at the diocese’s elementary schools, officials say. The presence of public charter schools has also been cited as a factor in the decline of parochial schools.
As a result, enrollment in the grade schools has dropped to about 35,000 from 55,000 since 1998. While the average vacancy rate is 15 percent, some schools have student gaps of another order: Blessed Sacrament School in Jackson Heights, Queens, one of those slated to close, once had 2,500 pupils; its enrollment today is 180.
“We fought hard for this school,” said Rachel Connolly, president of the parent association at Our Lady of Angels school in Bay Ridge. “My husband’s whole family went here — generation after generation of his family went through this building.”