A New Start at a Catholic School in Bay Ridge

Posted on 24. Oct, 2009 by Taylor Brown in Education, Religion

By Taylor Kate Brown

On the second morning of school, Rosemarie Diaz, a secretary at Holy Angels Catholic Academy in Bay Ridge, is still enrolling new students. The mother of a new student asks questions about the uniforms in a nearby display case; they sport the logo of a shield with a wing sprouting from each side. A class waiting in the hallway chimes a hello, in chorus, to their principal.

Just a few months ago, parents and teachers feared the school would close for good after years of decreasing enrollment.

Instead, Holy Angels is one of several schools to reopen this year under an independent Catholic academy model, where each school, administered by a board of directors comprised solely of laypeople, is legally and financially independent of the parish. The parish priest and the bishop of the diocese remain responsible for keeping the school Catholic.

The Roman Catholic Diocese in Brooklyn hopes to convert all its financially struggling schools to the academy model by August 2013. Last year, around 35,000 students attended 111 elementary schools within the diocese.

The journey from Our Lady of Angels School to Holy Angels Catholic Academy started last January, when the diocese announced that the parish school of the 4th Ave church would be one of 11 schools in Brooklyn and Queens closed at the end of the academic year. Parents and teachers found out about the school’s closing when a reporter stood waiting outside the gates, garnering reaction to the diocese’s press release.

“We were hurt in the way that it happened,” Rachel Connolly, the Parent’s Association president and mother of two children at the school, said.

Rosemarie McGoldrick, the school’s principal, said she expected to have two years to prove herself. Instead, the announcement of the school’s closing shocked her mid-way through her first year as principal.

“I’d come from a parish that closed its school because it didn’t have the money. We [Lady of Angels] had money,” she said.

Our Lady of Angels School received an endowment of $1 million from Phillip Whitcomb, an alumni, upon his death. Plus, the school rents out part of the 36,000-square foot building to Treasure Island, a day care, and to HeartShares, a human service agency. Parish and school finances usually didn’t mix, with the exception of a shared bookkeeper between the two accounts.

Instead, the school suffered from low enrollment. By the time of the diocese’s announcement, the total number of students for Pre-K to 8th grade had fallen to under 180. The target for all Brooklyn diocese elementary schools is at least 200.
According to McGoldrick, four Catholic schools in the immediate area and 20 years worth of speculation that the school would be the first to close, didn’t help enrollment numbers.

“Bay Ridge is a small town,” McGoldrick said, adding there were some concerns with the prior school administration.

“The perception was not positive.”

Connolly and other parents were determined to keep the school open. They set up a phone bank to gauge interest in the school if it did stay open. An online petition to “Save Our Lady of Angels School” garnered more than 850 signatures.

“It’s a special place,” Roseann Raccuia, an alumna and now the school nurse, said, “And [closing the school] affects the whole community. We have the seniors’ leisure club, scouts, and speakers here.”

McGoldrick, Fusco and two parish priests worked on a proposal to convince the diocese that the school could switch successfully to the model the diocese had proposed as part of a long-term solution to an ailing Catholic school system.

There were several items in their favor: the endowment, a school building with an auditorium, gymnasium and a whole unused floor, plus a promise from McGoldrick to increase enrollment. Superintendent Tom Chadzutko said the school’s commitment to stay open, as well as a realistic plan for the future, convinced him.

In the end, eight of the eleven schools did close, but Holy Angels is one of seven new academies in the diocese this year. In May, the original school closed and the entire staff had to apply again for their jobs. Not all were hired back. Even Mary Brennan, a Pre-K teacher who has worked at the school for 25 years, had to interview for her own position.

“There were questions as if you hadn’t worked here before, like ‘What would you bring to Holy Angels?’” Brennan said.

She said she is glad the school remains open and notes the teachers will be involved in more extra-curricular activities, like after-school arts-and-crafts.

“All eyes are on us, we’re like the guinea pig,” she said.

As of the second day of school, Holy Angels’ enrollment stands at 217.