RSS 2.0 FeedThursday, January 5, 2012, Merrick Life
VIEWPOINT: Sacred Heart report on Diocese meeting
Committee reflects on trying to save the school from closing.
On December 21, Sacred Heart parents, Principal Kerry Kahn, and Father Joseph Nixon met with Sister Joanne Callahan and Maureen Hanna from the Diocese [of Rockville Centre].
Hours before the meeting Newsday reported that the Diocese will not change its mind regarding the decision to close the six schools. We were not deterred because we expected that to be its position, but we had to avail ourselves of this opportunity to make our case for why Sacred Heart School should remain open. We also hoped to learn more about why the Diocese chose to close our perfectly viable and thriving school.
We prepared written materials, including charts depicting figures for our increasing enrollment, increasing fundraising and the decreasing level of the parish’s subsidy relating to the operation of the school.
No impartial arbitrator would conclude that Sacred Heart School should close after hearing the Diocese’s case and our case. That is irrelevant, of course, since this encounter was neither a fair hearing nor a negotiation.
The Diocese said that it was closing Sacred Heart School because of our enrollment. We countered with the evidence that enrollment has been trending upwards in recent years, even though we have been in the worst recession since the Great Depression. We also argued that the Diocese’s complete disregard of our pre-school enrollment was unfair because that is how we obtain new students, and we have an excellent retention rate of preschool children.
The Diocese responded that it would not be fair to the other schools that do not have preschools. We then argued that this should not be a contest among schools, but instead simply a question of whether our school is viable, by which we mean financially sound, and enjoys increasing enrollment.
The Diocese replied that it was not a contest, without any explanation for how that could be reconciled with its statement that our preschool children were not counted out of fairness to the other schools. The conclusion we must draw is that the Diocese is bent on closing a certain number of schools in this current round of closings because it has a cost-saving goal, it wishes to meet, which will require the closing of a certain number of buildings and the firing of a certain number of teachers.
Once the Diocese placed Sacred Heart School on the short list of potential schools to close it did become a contest among those unfortunate schools. That Sacred Heart School could continue to teach the children of our parish for a hundred years if the Diocese decided to leave it alone is irrelevant.
The Diocese has an intractable devotion to its strategic plan. Whenever we would question them to a point where a reasonable person would concede the argument, we were given another reference to the strategic plan.
We argued that closing the school would crush our parish spiritually and financially. The response was that the Diocese has closed schools before.
We argued that the time period the Diocese looked at our school did not represent the current health of our school or its future. That our new gymnasium is an engine for enrollment and money was irrelevant. Neither Sister Joanne nor Ms. Hanna has ever seen our new gym.
That they are closing us during an economic downturn which the country is already coming out of was not relevant. We argued that in a year the economy could be booming our school will be closed forever. We also pointed out that once the housing market picks up people who have been waiting to sell their homes to retire will do so and more young families with children will move into our parish.
We argued that Sacred Heart School has produced two priests in recent years. We argued that we have obtained Middle States accreditation. We argued that our fundraising success came during times when we did not know that we were in danger of being closed, and our fundraising could double or triple now that the parish and our alumni know that their school is in danger.
We asked them what the cost to the Diocese is to operate Sacred Heart School. We were told $30,000. We asked that if we guaranteed that we would run the school such that it did not cost the Diocese any money at all, would they keep us open. They said no.
We asked if we could lease the school from the Diocese to run the school as a private Catholic school. Sister Joanne said Father Nixon and the Diocese would need to approve that. We also said we would be willing to operate as an academy, which is a school still affiliated with the Diocese but more self-sufficient. The answer was Father Nixon and the Diocese would need to approve that. We were not given permission to try to operate the school privately.
We asked if the Diocese would just keep us open for a year so that we could have time to make the transition to a private school. They said no. We stated that our parishioners will be furious if the school building is used for some administrative purpose. We asked if the Diocese had any plans for the building. Sister Joanne and Father Nixon said there were none.
We asked what terrible thing would happen if either our school or all six schools opened for learning in September. They had no answer other than a reverent allusion to the strategic plan.
We argued that Christ would not be in favor of closing Sacred Heart School.
We also argued that our parishioners feel abandoned and betrayed by their Diocese. They are resentful because the school they built for 50 years through the weekly collections, tuition and donations is being taken from them for unjust reasons.
We argued that the Dioceses’ entire approach to declining enrollment is wrong. We pointed out that the great experiment of the regional school is a failure since they are closing two of them after only 20 years. We argued that our parents believe that our school is being closed to buttress Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton School. We argued that if the Catholic Church in America is weak in the 21st Century, it is because it gutted Catholic elementary education at the beginning of it.
We argued that it was unjust to close a financially healthy parish school with upward trending enrollment and fundraising just because a committee deems it beneficial to some strategic macro-plan. In other words, they are cutting off a healthy branch because they think it will help the tree. It won’t help the tree and it’s fatal to the branch.
We argued everything we could think of. Still... they said no.
Nonetheless, we are undeterred. We will organize a protest for next week. Please keep calling and writing the Diocese to oppose the closure. If anyone has any contacts on that committee that closed us, please let us know as soon as possible. The members of that committee are listed on the Diocese’s website.
We are putting together a specific financial plan for how we can operate the school such that we do not cost the Diocese any money or Sacred Heart parish any money above its 15% contribution to Catholic education.
Most importantly, keep praying.
– Shane Pallotta, Veronica Vukelic, Sue Carroll, Andrew Vessillo, Brian O’Keefe, Diane Waldhof, Pat McGrory and Karen Wollweber
The Committee to Save Sacred Heart School
