14 Catholic elementary schools in Brooklyn and Queens will close by this time next year due to plummeting enrollment, and other schools will merge in an attempt to adapt with changing trends nationwide. If the proposal announced yesterday by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn (which also includes Queens) is carried out, the diocese will have shut down nearly one-third of the elementary schools it had just half a decade ago, the Times reports.
The announcement left students and parents in tears; one third-grader at the doomed Flatbush Catholic Academy in Brooklyn told the Daily News, "I don't know how they could close my school." But the number of children attending Catholic elementary schools in Brooklyn and Queens has dropped about one-third since 1998, when 55,000 students were enrolled, compared with 37,000 children this year. To take one example, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament School in Jackson Heights is down to 180 students from 2,500 in the early '90s.
The Diocese's proposal, which is currently under review, could be approved as early as next month by Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio. In a statement, Bishop DiMarzio said, "When we determined that our schools are operating at only 85% of capacity, it became clear that we had to consider why this was happening and how we might reverse the trend."
Photo of a closed Catholic School in Brooklyn courtesy occipital lobe.
