Nazareth High School, R.I.P.
For some nine years, the most difficult decisions I had to make did not concern my personal life or job, but the Catholic high school that I served as a volunteer trustee. This week, the school announced it will close in June. I’m in mourning.
I’m not privy to the decison-making involved; I’ve been off the board for several years. But the reason Brooklyn’s Nazareth Regional High School will close is obvious: total enrollment for the four years has dropped to 311 – nearly the same size as my 1971 graduating class. As recently as 2006, the school had nearly double the current enrollment, 602. Since tuition makes up the bulk of revenue, it would be very hard to absorb such a loss (especially since there were already substantial debts).
It was a wonderful new school in my day, run by the Xaverian Brothers with a staff made up largely of talented, innovative young teachers, many of whom would go on to distinguished careers elsewhere as they got older. The combination of youthful enthusiasm and post-Vatican II optimism made it quite a place. The tuition, subsidized by the Diocese of Brooklyn, was $200 a year.
By the late 1970s, the Diocese of Brooklyn – first to feel the pinch of hard times because it is the only entirely urban diocese in the country – cut the school loose. A lay board was formed to run it, anticipating a model being adapted now in many Catholic schools. Changing with the demographics, the student population shifted from nearly all-white to entirely minority, with a large number of Caribbean-American students. The all-boys school accepted girls.
The school was slow at first to connect with the Caribbean community, but eventually did so. When I became involved in 2001, I saw that the warmth between teachers and students that I experienced had continued. This, I believe, is what makes Catholic education special – the commitment to the whole person. This is why the school graduated and sent virtually every student to college. And the quality of the school – the continued dedication of the staff – is why I thought it worth some effort, and a lot of difficult decisions, to try to keep the school going.
Much of the news coverage now is focusing on Nazareth’s unlikely rise in the past two or three years as a nationally ranked girls’ basketball power. But that misses the point of what made Nazareth stand out.
Like other Catholic schools, Nazareth offers a rounded education (“wisdom, age and grace” was the motto when I was a student) that parents would want for their children. But the sacrifice being asked was just too much for many: Tuition and fees now list at $7,785. This is six times the amount my parents paid in 1967, adjusted for inflation.
Costs rose, no doubt, because there were fewer Xaverian Brothers on the faculty (although the brothers helped the school in other ways). But if Catholics donated like Mormons, Nazareth and plenty of other now-closed and struggling schools would be flourishing.
Some alumni were very generous, but the overall percentage of those who gave was very low. Foundations shied away, and the biggest have put their money on charter schools, which have not proven to be a solution. The result: ever-rising tuition paid almost all the costs. I hated to vote for those tuition increases, but there was no other option.
One of the laments often heard when a Catholic school closes is that nobody knew the situation was so dire: “If only they had asked for help.” Realize, though, that the school administrators are in a difficult spot. If they state what should be obvious – “If we don’t get more donations, we’ll have to close” – parents will be reluctant to send their children there for fear the school will close. Donors – foundations, in particular – will be reluctant to give money to a school that might close.
For my part, while I am sad for the students, faculty, staff and board, I’m happy that Nazareth was able to accomplish much good in its 50 years. Given the circumstances, the school did well to make it through the past 20 years. Working in the newspaper business has taught me not to expect permanence; just do your best to serve the public while you have the chance.
But if you value urban Catholic schools, don’t wait to hear an S.O.S. before donating. By then, it will be too late.
Photo: Students at a walk-a-thon fundraiser; www.nazarethrhs.org.
Paul, I wonder whether the model wasn’t simply impossible, given the community. The cost, first of all, was impossible. What poor family could pay that? Second, why try to send everyone to university? Not everyone can be – or wants to be or needs to be – a bureaucrat or and engineer or an architect or a physician. There are excellent jobs going begging for want of highly trained workers. Train them, for heaven’s sake.
It’s a little embarrassing to me that Catholic schools should be reduced to trying to be expensive prep schools, instead of offering an excellent low-cost or free basic education to those most in need of a solid schooling in reading, writing, and math. Can’t we get back to that?
“But if Catholics donated like Mormons, Nazareth and plenty of other now-closed and struggling schools would be flourishing.”
Ay, that’s the rub!
I wonder if there isn’t a way to give some type of mission status to these schools that serve stressed populations?
While I’m not a supporter of nearby Catholic schools that serve mostly well-off white families in communities where there are very fne public schools and thereby perpetuate notions of rank and privilege, I would certainly be happy to contribute to schools that support stressed populations in other areas.
My son attended a Xaverian Brothers high school that, fortunately, continues to thrive academically and in many other ways (e.g., # 1 in the state in football), though money is always a concern and fundraisers are both creative and common. Many non-Catholics seek to send their sons there, too. Of course, the success of this school does not diminish the sadness associated with the closing of Nazareth, made all the more regrettable because the students are from an underserved community, and the closing is predicated not on a lack of students but on money.
As a very grateful alumnus of a parochial high school when the parochial league in our city conisted of ten parish teams in the ’60′s with all now closed, I mourned this transition years ago. Two diocedsan schools remain and one Christian Brothers highschool, now co-ed, with a very formidable tuition and with over 40% non-Catholics, I’m told– not a judgment, just an observation.
Our city school district announced a $35 million shortfall for next yer’s budget. Where will this come from? Our graduation rate is less than 50% and a new program of three years now with great fanfare and funding still has a couple of years to see if it works…
No ideas on what to do with the education questions, but I send my sympathy — and empathy — in this current sad dilemma.
Paul It truly will be a sad day for all when the doors close in June 2012 at Nazareth HS. Blame for the closing can be claimed and placed back decades in decisions by the Board of Trustees and others that oversaw the decline in enrollment at Nazareth while others Catholic high schools in Brooklyn flourished. But so may the praise be claim by the those Trustees and all the Nazareth Family for 50 years of caring. It always had a dedicated faculty and concerned staff. It was a place where a child could come to learn in a safe and nurturing environment. It is not the Catholic community alone but the community in general that will suffer from this closing. Nazareth’s doors were open to all that wanted an education. Catholic as well as Non -Catholic . Yes it is a sad day for Brooklyn and for education. Thank you to all those that gave their love, their time, their lives to Nazareth over these last 50 years.
I will always cherish the memories of the smiles on the faces of our fellow classmates . Marty Keating
I am no historian of this subject, but I seem to recall that when I was a boy many immigrant families would contribute to Catholic schools — to building and supporting them — out of a sense of solidarity with the Catholic Church and its mission in the world. The Mormons, as Father Imbelli implies, still practice that form of solidarity in impressive numbers and impressive ways. They also inculcate a sense of mission in their students in very practical ways. They also pay close community attention to the nurture and growth of their young people. They also have a lay clergy.
Many Catholics hoped that such practices would become central to the aggiornamento that John XXIII expected the Second Vatican Council to produce. Behind this ambition was the Pope’s recognition that many Christian churches since the Reformation had developed useful models for the kind of updating that he saw as necessary. For many reasons, and I am no historian of this subject either, the improvements have not always met with expectations. The aggiornamento remains distinctly an incomplete project. I’d hate to think that the Catholic Church has simply lost the path on the way to the modern world. Perhaps it is just resting. Maybe it’s time for another try.
I am sorry about this school. However, I removed my child from a Catholic high school in Queens after he was bullied and robbed by his fellow students. He was safer in a large public high school. What does that tell you about some of the Catholic high schools? The administrators are in denial about their problems and for some reason need to believe that their kids are angels. They are not. They have the same problems as public high school kids and do not have the services to offer them.
Well, at least they won’t have to offer contraceptives to staff and students, will they?
JulianJ: bullying in a Catholic high school !!!! My goodness, who woulda thought?
Ask and Jewish kid who lived in close proximity to a Catholic HS during the 1950s and 1960s about bullying. You know: Christ killers and all of that good Catholic theology.
It has come to my attention that Catherine McAuley High School in Brooklyn, Nazareth’s “sister school” is still alive and needs assistance. The school serves about 200 girls in a distressed neighborhood.
http://www.edline.net/pages/CatherineMcAuleyHS
I hope my paltry donation this month will not be the only one this school receives from the readers of this blog.
Based on Jean’s urging, I just made a donation.