Facing rising costs and falling enrollments, the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore will close 13 of its 64 schools at the end of the academic year, officials told employees and families on Wednesday.

Parents reacted with anguish and anger as word spread of 12 K-8 schools and one high school, Cardinal Gibbons School. All are in Baltimore or Baltimore County.

“This is a major blow,” Ted Ewachiw said at Sacred Heart of Mary School in East Baltimore, where he picked up his two children after school Wednesday. “It’s terrible. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I don’t want to send them to public.”

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By Lisa Wangsness

Globe Staff / March 16, 2010

Catholic school parents and students on Sunday protested plans to shut down their schools at a rally in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

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Some financial experts recommend companies provide educational opportunities for their employees during downturns in the economy, claiming education is a “safe investment” in troubled economic times. Education, they say, can maximize a company’s overall worth because it improves the most important aspect of any business – its human capital.

It follows, then, that a Catholic education is a “safe investment” in a troubled world; and even if the world were not in such turmoil, hundreds of thousands of parents would continue to find a substantial return on investment by sending their children to parochial schools.

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Senator Klein presents $50,000 to St. Dominic and $50,000 to St. Benedict Schools to fix broken windows and hole in roof

NEW YORK- Senator Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) presented 100K in grant money to St. Dominic and St. Benedict Catholic Schools today during their school assemblies.

St. Dominic has had a problem with broken windows for six years. Some of them do not open and one fell out, causing students to wear coats in the classroom to keep warm. Klein’s grant will be used to fix the windows.Sen

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SAINT JAMES SCHOOL AND SAINT JOSEPH SCHOOL TO MERGE

The Archdiocese of New York today announced that, after much consultation with parish and school leadership, Saint James School, located on Saint James Place, and Saint Joseph School, on Monroe Street, will merge into one school beginning in September, 2010, another step in the continuing process that will result in the eventual merger of the two parishes.  The new school will be known as Saint Joseph School and will be located in the current Saint Joseph School building.

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http://www.buffalonews.com/lifearts/next/story/938011.html

When most middle school students think about the future, thoughts focus on media technology, robotic science, relationships with friends and career paths. Students in the Future Cities Competition learned to consider a wider scope of ideas over a longer range of time and used their imaginations to propose solutions to potential problems of the future.

This year’s focus was “Providing an Affordable Living Space for People Who Have Lost Their Home Due to a Disaster or Financial Emergency.”

Seventh-and eighth-graders from 16 area schools worked with teachers and engineers to design and build their ideas of a future city that addressed this issue. Requirements included an essay, a city model made using the SimCity 4 Deluxe software, and a tabletop 3D-scaled model made out of recycled materials for display at the event. These were presented to engineer judges at the regional competition Saturday at Mount St. Mary Academy in Kenmore.