Diocese to shut oldest LI Catholic school

The oldest Roman Catholic school on Long Island will close its doors in June, the victim of declining enrollment and increasing debt, Diocese of Rockville Centre officials said Monday.

Stella Maris Regional Catholic School in Sag Harbor, which opened in 1877, will shut down after a plan to save it -- which included securing a minimum number of enrollment commitments for the fall -- failed, diocesan spokesman Sean Dolan said.

"As we are in the process of accepting a strategic plan for elementary schools in the diocese in September, I am sorry that this has happened and wished parents had chosen to stay at Stella Maris," said Bishop William Murphy, spiritual head of the diocese. "It was my hope that this would have given us time to look at the possibilities for the future of Catholic education in the East End of Long Island, including Stella Maris."

It will be the fourth closing of a Catholic elementary school on Long Island in the past year. In the previous five years, the diocese had bucked a national trend and avoided any shutdowns, thanks in part to a tuition-aid program called Tomorrow's Hope.

Diocesan officials had told parents at Stella Maris, which has 127 kindergarten through eighth-grade students this year, that it would need at least 102 students enrolled for the fall to keep the school open. By last week, just 44 students were committed, the diocese said.

Five of the grades had three or fewer students enrolled. "This would not make for a healthy learning environment," the diocese said in a statement. "Unfortunately, there is no way that a school can operate academically or financially with so few students."

The school also has 60 children in nursery and pre-K. Just nine committed to enrollment for the fall, the diocese said.

The school's closure has been marked by some turmoil, with the principal and some school board members resigning last month as word of the school's troubles spread.

Monday at the school, parents said they were saddened by the plans.

"It's an absolutely horrible loss," said Michael Garabedian, 51, a lawyer who was looking forward to his daughter attending first grade at the school next year. "This has been an institution for decades."

Sister Joanne Callahan, superintendent of schools for the diocese, said she made herself available to parents for private meetings last week to reach the minimum enrollment required.

"I wanted with all my heart for this oldest school in our diocese to continue," she said.

Parents also had raised thousands of dollars in pledges to help keep the school open.

Dolan said the church would give the school $90,000 in aid -- the largest school subsidy in the diocese -- to help it finish this year and do so again next year, if the minimum enrollment goal was met and the school came up with a balanced budget.