PBtest_01082020

Our Lady of Mercy School, a Catholic K-8 school in Hicksville, will close at the end of this academic year because of declining enrollment and tuition revenue, the Diocese of Rockville Centre said Tuesday.

The school was established nearly 60 years ago by the Sisters of Mercy, and its closing “is a great loss to the students, parents, teachers, administrators, support staff and volunteers who have served the school so faithfully during its history,” the diocese said in a statement.

Enrollment dropped from 368 students in kindergarten through eighth grade in the 2012-13 school year to its current 104 students, diocesan spokesman Sean Dolan said. That amounted to a 72% decrease.

Its nursery school saw similar declines over the same period, he said, suggesting a reversal in the drop-off was unlikely.

Long Islanders shouldn’t drive if they don’t have to during a powerful winter storm predicted to bring a mixed bag of snow, rain and ice beginning late Saturday afternoon and culminating Sunday afternoon and evening in a possible flash freeze, officials and forecasters said.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for Nassau County and northwestern Suffolk from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon that calls for “heavy, mixed precipitation,” with a possible 3 to 5 inches of snow, along with up to a tenth of an inch of ice accumulation. There’s also potential for snowfall rates of an inch an hour early Saturday night.

The rest of the Island is looking at a possible 1 to 3 inches of snow and sleet, and up to a glaze of ice, the weather service said in its Friday evening forecast.