Rome Catholic School to close, joining long list of Catholic schools shuttering in the US
Rome Catholic School, the last parochial school in the city, will close at the end of the school year, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse recently announced.
“The decision was not made lightly,” Syracuse Bishop Douglas Lucia and Superintendent of Catholic Schools Amy Sansone wrote in a letter to parents. “Over the past few years, we have been faced with ongoing challenges, primarily stemming from declining enrollment and financial constraints. Despite our best efforts to sustain and strengthen the school community, the combination of these factors has unfortunately led us to this difficult outcome.”
Only 49 students are enrolled in the school’s kindergarten through sixth grade classes despite years of effort to increase enrollment and stabilize finances, officials said. The school also offers a universal pre-kindergarten program.
Local Catholic schools
Over the past few decades, the number of Catholic schools in the diocese has shrunk. There are currently 21 schools in the seven-county diocese. Back in 1960, there were 75 schools in the diocese and 37,000 students, according to an article in the O-D archives.
Once Rome Catholic closes, the only remaining Catholic schools in Oneida County will be Notre Dame Elementary School and Notre Dame Junior/Senior High School in Utica. St. Patrick’s School in Oneida in Madison County also remains open.
The rest of the diocese’s schools are in Onondaga, Cortland, Broome, Oswego and Chenango counties.
Another Catholic junior-senior high school in Oneida, Holy Cross Academy, is private and not affiliated with the diocese.
The Albany Diocese includes St. Francis de Sales Early Childhood Learning Center in Herkimer, which offers pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade classes.
The Rome Catholic staff will be working with parents in the coming weeks to help them find new schools for their children, officials said.
History of Rome Catholic School
Rome Catholic opened as a high school in 1963 and then merged with Rome Catholic Junior High School in 1986 to create Rome Catholic Junior-Senior High School. It then merged with St. Peters School in 2004 to become a pre-school through 12th grade institution.
The last high school class graduated in 2013 and the school transitioned to an elementary school with universal pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.
“We are profoundly grateful for the unwavering support and dedication you have shown to Rome Catholic throughout the years,” the letter from Lucia and Sansone continued. “Your commitment to Catholic education has been instrumental in shaping the lives of our students and contributing to the spirit of Rome’s Catholic community.”
Across the nation
Nationally nearly 1.7 million students attend 5,905 parochial schools with about 10% of enrollment in preschool, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.
In the past year, 20 new schools have opened nationally and 55 have closed or consolidated, the lowest number in recent years, according to NCEA statistics.
On average, about 100 Catholic schools have closed or consolidated annually in recent years except for in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic when more than 200 schools closed during the 2020-2021 school year, NCEA statistics show.
Catholic school enrollment has declined by 14.2% since the 2013-14 school year, according to the association.
Local history
The first Catholic school in Rome opened in 1850 and a girls’ school opened in 1873, according to the diocese. The two schools, which came to be known as St. Aloysius Academy and Academy of the Holy Names closed in 1963 when Rome Catholic High School opened.
Rome Catholic Junior High School was created in 1974 with seventh and eighth grade students from the schools at St. Peter’s, St. Mary’s and Transfiguration churches. It then merged with the senior high in 1986.
Transfiguration School and St. Peter’s merged into one elementary school located at St. Peter’s in 2003 and then moved to Rome Catholic in 2004, which included all grades until the junior and senior high school closed in 2013.
Other Catholic schools to close in Oneida County in the past 30 years include St. Mary’s in New York Mills, St. Agnes in Utica and Blessed Sacrament in Utica in 1994; Holy Trinity Elementary School and Sacred Heart, both in Utica, in 2002; and St. Mary’s in Clinton and St. Peter’s in North Utica in 2009 (when they merged with Our Lady of Lourdes under the new name Notre Dame Elementary school).
In total, the eastern region of the diocese, which includes most of Oneida County and a contiguous portion of Madison County, had 16 schools in 1980, had six in 2008 and will have three after the end of this school year.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Rome Catholic School to close, Syracuse Diocese announces
