April 7, 2008
“Save Our School” - St. Joseph School
In the inbox: “The school has been informed by the Diocese of Richmond that it has until April 21 to raise $1 million in order to stay open for the next several years. Contributions are tax deductible and checks made to St. Joseph School (memo-Save Our School) will be held in a safe deposit box and only cashed if we meet the goal. In the unlikely event that we don’t meet the goal, all checks will be returned. Please help support educational choice in Petersburg and the children who thrive in this caring and dually accredited academic environment.”
P-I articles on what’s going on, what’s at stake:
Catholic school may close
Parents worried about possible closure
Let’s save St. Joseph School
Effort faces deadline
School has 23 days to raise $1million
Editorial in P-I on related legislation
I saw this on the news, Friday I think, and wondered why they gave them less than 30 days to try to raise that much money. *shrug*
Yeah.
It could be the “changing demographics” part of their statement. COuld be that there are less and less catholics (for now) in the neighborhood.
I’d think they’d be interested in keeping it open for precisely that reason: can you think of a better way for the catholics to buy good will amoungst non-catholics around here?
Also, it must be one the the most racially diverse schools in central VA. Nice. Nice PR, which they could use lately.
But, as my catholic in-laws have pointed out, many catholics are more “ethnically” catholic than they are doctrinally catholic (believing the pope literally has his ear on God’s heart, the importance of Rome to Jesus, and such), — so it could be that they just don’t want to subsidize the education of non-catholics, while educating less and less catholics. This makes INTERNAL political sense to me, if it is perhaps short-sighted as far as the future influence of the church goes.
Anyway, just some unsubstanciated musings.
The teachers must be given 120 days notice if the school will not be able to renew their contracts. April 21 is the date.
Does that mean that the school had notice of the deadline some time ago and it was just recently made public?
I sent a letter to the diocese in Richmond in support of keeping the school open. The response that I got indicated that the school had notice of the deadline and that rising cost and declining student enrollment has been apparent for quite some time. I think it is purely a financial decision.
Problems are also opportunities.
Start a Charter School to help PPS and offer new choices. The current St. Joes principal should shut down operations at that old building and cut formal ties with the parish.
Form a new team with an active Church that has room for a school.(maybe St. Mark’s Walnut Hill), teach under an emergency or provisional license until it is certified. You can fill in the rest. This is doable. A parents group as active as St. Joes is capable of it.
This is a new day. This is a blessing in diguise for those willing to think outside the box.
Shawn,
Unless things have changed, you do not have to be Catholic to attend St. Josephs so a lot of what you have written is not very relevant.
Nyunt,
St. Marks does not have the room for another school. There is already a pre-school operating there.
To All:
With the explosion that is expected to happen at Ft. Lee, it is too bad that some time could be granted to see what impact that could have on this St. Joseph’s.
Meeting someone on the board three weeks ago, she brought up her concerns about whether the school may close or not. It seems to be something that has been perculating for a while but simply not made public. I do not understand why this problem was not made public a lot sooner then it has.
Just my thoughts..
Actually, parents were ONLY notified informally a few weeks ago. The formal PTO meeting occurred only yesterday. Although the school has had financial difficulties, parents as a whole were not included in the original discussions. Apparently, area parrishes felt that it was not in their best interest to sponsor SJS even if it became a regional school. As a result we are shocked but we are entirely committed. We raised seventeen thousand dollars this week-end. If you are able to help us raise these funds or support our cause, please do and please continue to voice your concerns to the dioceses.
We have many people from outside the tricities who bring their kids to St. Joseph’s not only for the academics (it’s the only dually accredited Private school in this area) but because of the nuturing all students receive.
I sincerely think this school was targeted for closure and the Dioceses clearly surprised at how everyone has galvanized for this cause. The impact for Petersburg and surrounding areas will be far reaching (we have 30% students enrolled fro Ft. Lee).
“Unless things have changed, you do not have to be Catholic to attend St. Josephs so a lot of what you have written is not very relevant.”
Uhmmm…. did you READ my post?
I am of course aware that you don’t need to be catholic to go to st. joes. I just postulated that perhaps if the vast majority of the children who went there WERE catholic, the bishop would have to care more, due to internal politics.
This move by the Catholic Church is deja vu! I attended Bollingbrook School for 12 years and it merged with the cross town rival Gibbons (the catholic high school) and created St. Vincent de Paul in the 1980’s and was later closed by the Catholic Church in the 1990’s. I believe the reason at the time was they could not find a new headmaster. The parents should inquire about the proceeds from the sale of the land on Wagner Road. Does the church/school still own the land at the corner of Johnson and Flank road (maybe to sell). Maybe St. Joseph’s should be changed to a non-denominational school.
I heard at church this morning that the St. Joe’s people have raised over 250K so far. That’s quite a bit.
We have raised over $ 500,000.00 in cash thanks to the efforts of the kids, parents, staff and the community. It’s obvious that no one expected this and we believe we can reach our goal.