蜜芽传媒

The deadline came Friday for as many as 30 pastors to decide whether to close their underenrolled parish schools at the end of the academic year. Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski will release an update soon after reviewing the submissions, according to a spokeswoman.

The Catholic school system is financially unsustainable with too many buildings for not enough students, church leaders have said. Enrollment in the 82 grade schools has fallen below 65% capacity, straining the ability of parishes to subsidize an average operating deficit of $600,000 each year.

Catholic schools face the same headwinds as public and other private schools, mainly a longstanding decline in birth rates. There are now about 19,000 students 鈥� down from 40,000 in 2000 鈥� in kindergarten through eighth grade across the archdiocese, which covers 蜜芽传媒 and 10 counties in eastern Missouri. More than half of the archdiocesan schools have fewer than 200 students, considered a benchmark for viability.

Parish leaders from dozens of the smaller schools met with archdiocesan officials this fall to discuss their schools鈥� enrollment and demographic trends, finances and proximity to other parish schools.

Pastors were given three choices: close the school, merge with another Catholic school, or stay open and produce a long-term plan to raise funds and attract more students. If the pastor decides to keep the school open, his strategic plan will be due in February.

Pastors have been told that staying open could reduce the amount that struggling schools are subsidized by the archdiocese, according to a parish school administrator in 蜜芽传媒 County.

Early hints from church bulletins indicate that the number of closures will not meet archdiocesan leaders鈥� initial goal of shuttering 35 grade schools.

The Rev. David Hogan at St. Simon the Apostle in south 蜜芽传媒 County said he will produce a plan to keep the school open despite enrolling just 126 students last year, down 55% since 2017.

鈥淲e are asking God to lead St. Simon the Apostle through this time of transition toward a future full of hope. This is what our strategic plan and parish renewal aims to achieve,鈥� Hogan wrote in a recent letter to his flock.

Parishioners at St. Monica in Creve Coeur are also scrambling to save their school of around 160 students.

鈥淚f the people of St. Monica don鈥檛 step up and meet the short- and long-term request for funding that I am requesting, and the school closes, in 15 years, there will probably be no more St. Monica, and the 150-year tradition will come to an end,鈥� the Rev. Sebastian Mundackal wrote in October to the Creve Coeur parish, which faces a $470,000 deficit in 2024.

The archdiocese鈥檚 two-year 鈥淎ll Things New鈥� restructuring process led to the closures of 35 parishes and the merging of 15 others in August. School closure or merger decisions were originally to be announced in January 2023 but were pushed back a year following outcry from parishioners and parents.

Apart from 鈥淎ll Things New,鈥� three grade schools did not reopen this fall because of low enrollment: Good Shepherd in Hillsboro, St. Mark in south 蜜芽传媒 County and St. Rose in Florissant.

Two archdiocesan high schools in 蜜芽传媒, Rosati-Kain for girls and St. Mary鈥檚 for boys, were both slated for closure this year. Boosters rallied to save both schools, which are now operating independently of the archdiocese.

Similar efforts kept St. James the Greater school in the Dogtown neighborhood of 蜜芽传媒 open for two years after the archdiocese moved to close it in 2017. The school stopped receiving its annual $250,000 subsidy from the archdiocese, and enrollment fell to 73 students when it closed in 2019.