The Archdiocese of Boston announced yesterday that the St. Mary Star of the Sea School will be closing after this school year, according to Boston.com. Enrollment at the 120-year-old school has been dropping precipitously and next year would have been just one-third of what it was four years ago.
The demise of St. Mary's, a K-8 school located at Saratoga and Moore streets in East Boston, follows last June's shuttering of Savio High School, which is just one block away. That leaves East Boston Central Catholic as the only Catholic school remaining in the neighborhood.
The St. Mary's parish was in the news a little over a year ago when the church building itself was sold and then sold again, reaping a big profit for the first buyer and ending up in the hands of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a Pentecostal group.
9 comments:
Catholic schools in urban areas need to rethink their model of financing. Savio had the opportunity to look into and possibly become a Cristo Rey model school where students work one day a week in a corporate setting to finance their education. The school chose not to go in that direction. North Cambridge Catholic did embrace this model and are thriving. It is too bad Savio did not have a vision of the bigger picture and the future.
This is another sad chapter in East Boston's history. My three children attended St. Mary Star of the Sea School, as did my father and his four brothers and my husband's father and his four siblings. Some of my closest friendships in Eastie were formed with other parents at the school. We all remember the many fundraising events and social activities that created a real sense of community. Father Kennedy remains a close friend of my family. Those connections are hard to come by in this increasingly frantic world of ours.
I remember when the Archdiocese closed St. Lazarus School, citing irreparable damages. Well, that was their in-house engineer's opinion, not shared by other engineers who spoke for the community in favor of fixing the school and having it remain a vital part of East Boston. Then, Savio Prep closed: another school where I enjoyed being a parent and enjoyed fundraising to keep the school afloat. Sadly, dire financials there were hard to overcome, and the community lost again.
We should all be concerned with what replaces the school at the site of St. Mary's. Are we going to be victims of another questionable real estate deal or will the Archdiocese finally be sensitive to this community? I guess time will tell.
I would like to send my best wishes to the teachers at St. Mary's and to Mrs. Lawrence, the school's principal. Thank you, all, for educating so many children from East Boston and the surrounding towns.
I hope they put in a bunch of condo's. Cleanup the area.
Here is a link to a recently published article that talks about the problems faced by Urban Catholic Schools in America.
http://www.edexcellence.net/institute/global/index.cfm
the last thing east boston needs is more condos!
Now to get back to the real ills of the world. What's up with the price of Maple syrup. I may have to give up waffles for good. Jim can you help us lower the cost of syrup? I bet the eastbostonian blog can.
Where is the Catholic School's 2010 plan here in Eastie?
What the Archdoicese should have done is sell St. Lazurus property and used that mony to keep St. Mary's Church, the school and Savio and opened a regional school from K-12 in these two to three facilities.
However, Fr. Kilmartin is cotent to just have a dying Catholic population in Eastie--I talk to the Archdiocese and Fr. Kilmartin's the one that makes these recomendations.
So instead of having good catholic education we have one school and Fr. Kilmartin's church that is lucky to have 100 parishioners on Sunday. Good for him and people wonder why no one goes to church anymore.
There could have been a real model catholic school complex here in Eastie but the church is unwilling to step up and invest in our children. It's a shame.
When I was younger the church and community supported four Catholic Schools, and before that we had six.
You know what the worst thing about this is, they lay it on the parents before the end of the school year. That's right, after public school and private school registration is over. They gave not one parent any warning. What are these people to do? You know what they'll do--pack up and move out of Eastie. Bet your money on it. I'm a parent and that's exactly what I would do becuase how many times can you turn the other cheek when it's been slapped by the church, Massport, the city, the state? When is enough, enough and when is someone going to stand up and fight for this neighborhood?
We are being redlined by insurance companies, tricked by developers,and led down a path that we will one day look less and less like home.
What saddens me the most is that all the memories of quaint, close knit community we all share will never be realized by the hundreds of new comers and immigrants becuase they'll be nothing for them or us here to call a 'community' unless someone reverses the trend now.
My question is, who will it be?
Are we that beaten and broken as a neighborhood? Do we not care?
People should be taking to the streets and protesting just about every raw deal this community gets.
-John Lynds
St. Mary's Class of 1991 and Savio Class of 1995
In response to John Lynds:
You are right, John, about there not being a plan or vision. At the time that the Archdiocese was planning to close St. Lazarus, many of us who were parents, along with longtime residents, presented a plan similar to your idea of a regional school.
Since we really believed that the building could be saved, we envisioned the following: expanding the school's physical plant and incorporating Savio with our plan. St. Lazarus already had a cafeteria in the youth center. It needed updating, but the footprint was there and that was missing at St. Mary's. St. Lazarus was on a side street, so we argued the case that the location was safer for the kids. Close proximity to the Orient Heights MBTA station would have helped in a recruitment of kids outside of East Boston, who then could have been a greater feeder system for Savio. The youth center also had a real gym, which St. Mary's didn't have, and that would have been a draw for parents looking for a school that had many features. The convent at St. Lazarus was seen as an extra building for the "campus." Also, St. Lazarus had a newly built kindergarten in the basement of the church, with room for expansion. That area also had a "stage," as did the youth center, so school shows and events could have been held there. All of the buildings at St. Lazarus were newer than at St. Mary's, so we considered that a plus from a sustainability standpoint.
Several of us who wanted to see St. Lazarus become the northern East Boston centralized school. We even went to see the Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese and her staff to present our plans. Gus Serra was a key person who went with us and he had commitments for the seed money to get the project started. The community was solidly behind his efforts. Sadly, the Archdiocese was not. The Archdiocese had the St. Lazarus School building torn down so fast that it became apparent that there was no appetite at the Archiocese for helping East Boston.
I think the reality is that the Archdiocese thinks in a vacuum, listening to their own about what should be done in communities, without giving serious thought to what the families want, the very families the Church wants to support stewardship appeals, etc.
You were correct about the difficulty that parents will face when trying to find schools for next year. When St. Lazarus closed - we were told in late August that the school would not reopen - the Archdiocese made the same empty promise that it would help with the placement of students. No, the parents were left to do it all on their own. We had to place our kids on waiting lists and the City of Boston even wanted to send my daughter to Roxbury, because they said it was the only open slot. I did remind them that East Boston students aren't supposed to be forced out of our community because of the tunnels, but it fell on deaf ears. I was leaning toward home schooling for the short term until a school could be found. Luckily, St. Mary Star of the Sea accepted my daughter at the last possible minute.
John, let me know when you schedule the rally in the streets. I'll be there.
I'd hardly call the Catholic population "dying" in Eastie. It just happens to speak Spanish. And that's just the older part of that segment of the Catholic community. The younger ones are bilingual and the smallest are first and foremost English speaking with just enough Spanish to get by with the oldsters.
Go ask any priest in the Boston area -- the English Mass is given before a shrinking gathering of aging folks while the Spanish Mass (or Portuguese or whatever other language in other parts of the city) is packed front to back with families who fill the collection baskets with the money that they don't send back to family in Salvador or Colombia.
If you really want to apply pressure to the Church in Boston (and Eastie in particular) taking to the streets won't do much. Start talking to those folks filling the pews (and coffers) of the churches that remain. Well, actually if you're not bilingual you may have to talk to the kids, but they can translate for you.
Remember the priests would rather be doing baptisms and weddings than funerals.
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