Bishop O'Reilly to Close

Beverly (Yakus) Cottle has been sending me some articles about the closing of Bishop O'Reilly which is expected to happen at the end of this academic year. Below are articles from various news sources, one of which includes a quote from Beverly. I've also got a link to the full report, called the Meitler Recommendations for Lackawanna Wayne Counties.

It's sad for me to hear about the closing of the Catholic schools and churches around the valley. First it was the Catholic elementary schools citing falling enrollment and rising costs and now it's the high schools. At first I was looking for someone or something to blame, then I realized there were just too many causes for this condition to lay blame on any single cause. So I'll just take some of the blame myself for having moved away from area, like many others have done, searching for better employment opportunities.

The town where I live now (Greeley, CO) opened up its first Catholic elementary school about 5 years ago, and it has an enrollment of about 120 students. It's the only one in a 50 mile radius. There are no Catholic High Schools in all of Northern Colorado despite a combined population of over 250,000. :-(

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From Diocese of Scranton Website:
Diocese to Decide Fate of Catholic Schools

Tuesday, November 14, UDPATED: 9:50 p.m.
By Jon Meyer and Bianca Barr

A plan developed for the Diocese of Scranton proposes to close several Catholic schools in Luzerne County, including three of the four high schools.

A group that's been studying Roman Catholic education in our area developed the plan. It was unveiled Tuesday night during a meeting at Genetti's in downtown Wilkes-Barre.

A similar meeting will be held Wednesday night at St. Mary's Center in Scranton. Recommendations for Catholic schools in Lackawanna and Wayne Counties will be unveiled.

The plan for Luzerne County involves moving from a parish-based school system to one that is regional in nature. Bishop Joseph Martino called the plan "very radical in some ways. It is very new for the 21st century and, at the same time, very transforming. It's going to permit us to go from what we have right now, which may not help us sufficiently, into something altogether new and improved."

Enrollment numbers in Luzerne County show Catholic elementary schools are down 1,700 students since 2000. High schools lost 500 students, bringing the total to more than 2,000 empty seats in five years.

In light of declining enrollment and rising costs, the consultants recommend closing three of the four Catholic high schools in Luzerne County. Bishop Hafey in Hazleton, Bishop O'Reilly in Kingston, and Seton Catholic in Pittston would close. Only Bishop Hoban in Wilkes-Barre would remain open, but with a new name.

"I don't particularly like that idea, and I don't think a lot of my classmates will end up going there," said Shane Ostroski, a junior at Seton Catholic. "I am not too sure what I will do, but what we've been talking about in class, many of them say they would go to a public school."

The plan also recommends trimming the number of Catholic elementary schools in Luzerne County from 14 to 10. The Sacred Heart and St. Boniface schools in Wilkes-Barre would be phased out. Pope John Paull II in Nanticoke and Sacred Heart in Dupont would be closed.

"The school is the heart of the parish," said Fr. Joseph Verespy of Sacred Heard in Dupont. "So, if the school does in fact close along the line, it would really affect the way the parish operates."

The recommendations that come out of Tuesday and Wednesday night's meetings are not final. The Diocese of Scranton will study the report and the schools and make a final decision in January on which, if any, schools will close.

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Proposal: O’Reilly, Seton, Hafey to close

Students would attend updated Hoban. Several elementary schools may shut.

By MARK GUYDISH, Times Leader


WILKES-BARRE – Bishop Hoban as the lone Catholic high school in the county, forcing Hazleton students to travel either 25 miles north to Wilkes-Barre or 12 miles south to Tamaqua. No more St. Boniface elementary in Wilkes-Barre, no more Sacred Heart in Dupont or Wilkes-Barre, no more Pope John Paul II in Nanticoke, and the combination of Regis in Forty Fort and Sacred Heart in Luzerne.

And no more parish schools. They would all fall under the jurisdiction of a newly created regional school board overseeing all of Luzerne County.

That, in a nutshell, is the preliminary proposal for local Catholic schools under the long-awaited report and recommendations from Wisconsin-based Meitler Consultants Inc., which calls for consolidating Bishop Hafey in Hazleton, Seton Catholic in Pittston, and Bishop O’Reilly in Kingston into an expanded and updated Bishop Hoban.

The man who outlined the plan at a press conference Tuesday, Alan Meitler, did not speculate on how many students the diocese would lose by closing three high schools, but the math is simple. Last year the four schools had 1,383 students in grades 9 through 12. Meitler said they expect the new school would have about 1,000. Translation: A loss of nearly 400. “There would be substantial savings, but more importantly we will be able to offer academic courses, programs and opportunities not available in all the schools,” Meitler said.

Much of that loss of students, presumably, would come from closing Bishop Hafey, where there were 263 students last year. Pressed multiple times about what some might consider an abandonment of Hazleton high school students, Diocese School Superintendent Joe Casciano conceded that there is no way to counter such a negative response. “If there wasn’t an emotional attachment (to the school), we’d be more concerned.”

He also tried to cast the plan as providing an option, rather than simply closing the lone Hazleton Catholic high school. The diocese wants to make an arrangement with the Diocese of Allentown that would allow Hazleton Area students to attend Marian Catholic in Tamaqua as if they were from Marian’s area and supporting parishes.

The Diocese of Scranton already has a similar arrangement for high school students in northern counties to attend a high school that actually sits in the Diocese of Rochester, he added.

Meitler and others repeatedly stressed the recommendations are preliminary and that the next step is to receive input and options from committees set up at each school involved. Final recommendations and decisions would be made in January. Meitler also said he couldn’t offer ways for people to alter the proposals, but encouraged “rational, clear and compelling ideas and facts” in any alternatives.

The plan as it stands now calls for the new regional system to be set up and the high schools merged by the start of next school year. The new regional system would create greater accountability by putting most control of the school system into the hands of lay people, Meitler said.

It would also level tuition across elementary schools, and spread parish subsidies among all churches, rather than the current system that has one or several parishes supporting a nearby school. Meitler said it was too early to suggest details of such a plan, but that the idea would be to make sure the amount requested from each parish is equitable.

Most of the recommendations for elementary schools are not as immediate, routinely suggesting that a year or more pass while details are worked out and buildings are prepared for school mergers. The proposals are:

• Trying to sell Bishop Hafey High School and use the money to build a new, larger elementary school to accommodate the 504 students currently attending two separate Hazleton buildings grouped together as “Holy Family Academy.” If Bishop Hafey cannot be sold, it could be converted to handle the elementary students. That second choice is not a simple proposal, though. Rooms, furniture and even toilets must be kid-sized under such a plan.

• Look into setting up a pre-kindergarten to grade three or grade six school as part of St. John Bosco Parish in Conyngham. The report notes that St. John Bosco and nearby Good Shepherd “have sufficient base of school-age students to support an elementary school” if parents want to support one.

• Close Pope John Paul II – one of only two schools in the nation named after the late pope – in Nanticoke, but keep the early childhood center open. The report notes the school has $162,000 in debt and that some of the supporting parishes will almost certainly be consolidated.

• Eventually merge St. Boniface with St. Aloysius. The two schools, barely a mile apart, “by themselves do not have enough enrollment to be viable long term. Although they are technically supported by a total of four parishes (three for St. Boniface) students come from “over 30 parishes.” The two schools started this year with combined enrollment of 340 students, which would be too much for St. Aloysius, but it could be expanded, Meitler said.

• Work toward unifying SS. Peter and Paul in Plains Township and Sacred Heart nearby in Wilkes-Barre, first putting them under one administrator and eventually phasing out Sacred Heart.

• Add a full-day kindergarten class to St. Jude in Mountain Top, and continue trying to expand pre-kindergarten offerings. The report notes that St. Jude has an unusually high loss of students from sixth to seventh grade, and urges efforts to figure out why and reverse the trend.

• Market and recruit at Gate of Heaven in Dallas, where enrollment has dropped from 514 in 2000-01 to 325 this year.

• Combine Sacred Heart in Luzerne and Regis Elementary in Forty Fort, either by moving all students to the Bishop O’Reilly building, or splitting the grades so that one school handles lower grades and one handles higher grades. There is no recommendation on handling the special education students housed at Regis, the only diocese school in the county that has special education enrollment.

• The report called the recent reorganization of schools in the Pittston area “very problematic” – parents unsuccessfully sued to keep St. John The Baptist open. Under that reorganization in 2004, four elementary schools and Seton Catholic High School were grouped under “Region 7 (the diocese currently has eight school regions, four of them in Luzerne County; under the new system those four would be one region).

The report calls Region 7 “a regional system in name only” with many schools still operating independently. It recommends considering moving St. Mary Assumption students to another facility, possibly to an expanded Wyoming Area Catholic or to the former Oblate Seminary in Pittston. It also suggests the new marketing and retention efforts for Wyoming Area Catholic.

Meitler did not speculate on what will happen to employees of closed schools, and Casciano declined to say how the diocese would decide which ones are kept when schools merge. Casciano did note the diocese has about 350 teachers and administrators countywide, and that there is a natural turnover of up to 100 teachers a year. He said he hopes that, along with retirements, would help avoid having people involuntarily lose their jobs.

Meitler praised Bishop Joseph Martino and the diocese. “This diocese administration is being very proactive. It is being very courageous,” he said. The goal is not simply to save money but “to have money to spend on things we’re not doing here. … We want to come out of this plan truly with something better and something exciting.”

Admitting he found the school system “confusing” when he became Bishop in 2003, Martino echoed the sentiment. He said he was concerned that some schools seemed to lose their Catholic identity – he cited the lack of religious decorations at Christmas – some were in serious need of repairs, and some were carrying unacceptable debt. He refused to place blame, opting instead to suggest that people may simply have gotten caught in an old system of running schools that doesn’t work anymore.

“As we move forward I hope people will not assault the messenger or get tied up in issue of methodology. I’m very, very concerned that people take the opportunity to be concerned about our schools, and not just about my school.”

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School news angers parents

BY WADE MALCOLM
STAFF WRITER, Citizen's Voice

11/15/2006

WILKES-BARRE — A distressed, angry look crossed Beverly Cottle’s face upon hearing the news.


Bishop O’Reilly — her alma mater and the school from which her son will graduate in the spring — will soon close if the Scranton Diocese carries out the recommendations made Tuesday night.

The Forty Fort resident arrived at the lobby of the Genetti Hotel & Conference Center with her husband, Bruce, at around 8:30 p.m., hoping to learn the fate of the Kingston high school.

“I think it’s such a sad statement on the day we open a casino, filled to capacity,” she said, referring to the huge crowd that attended opening day of Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, “and our Catholic schools are empty.”

“I just don’t know where our priorities are,” she said visibly emotional and shaking her head.

She was not the only parent to point out the ironic timing of two landmark events in Luzerne County. Nor was she the only one disappointed when the rumors many had feared for months were finally confirmed.

Though the study released Tuesday only made recommendations, which are not final, some parents and students see the report as a kiss of death. They presume the diocese would follow through on the study’s advice and shutter schools they have come to love.

Mike Vitale has a daughter enrolled in eighth grade at Sacred Heart, Dupont, and a son in his sophomore year at Seton Catholic in Pittston. Both schools will be eliminated if the diocese follows the recommendations. He said the institutions have had an important impact on his family.

“One of the things I’ve always appreciated is the small scale of the schools, the closeness of the school environment,” he said. “My daughter has been with the same 18 or 20 kids since she started school.”

With the plan to consolidate the county’s four Catholic high schools into one, juniors at Seton Catholic, Bishop O’Reilly and Bishop Hafey in Hazleton face an awkward adjustment heading into a senior year removed from the experiences of their undergraduate years.

“I’m a little upset; I don’t want to leave all my friends,” said Sam Andrewscavage, a Seton Catholic junior and a member of the school’s baseball team. “I’m going to miss the school and I’m going to miss my team.”

Anticipating the emotions stirred by the sweeping recommendations, the diocese stressed how essential change was to the future of Catholic education in Northeastern Pennsylvania, unpleasant though it might be.

“I hope there will not be too many emotional outbursts,” the Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino said during a press conference. “What I think people are forgetting is that our schools are in terrible shape.”

While some were distraught their schools had closed, others were relieved to learn theirs were spared, such as Pat O’Brien, a mother of two students at Holy Rosary in Duryea, who knew she would “sleep a lot easier tonight.”

“All of us feel very badly for the students and the parents of the schools that were affected,” she said. “As happy as we are for our school, we are praying for them that they will be able to stay in a catholic school in Luzerne County.”