By Jacqueline Durett
Correspondent
SOUTH AMBOY — The last Catholic school in the city will close its doors on June 30.
The Diocese of Metuchen made the announcement on April 15 about Sacred Heart School, a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school that is located on Washington Avenue.
According to a letter from diocese officials sent to parents, “Since this time last year, enrollment has decreased by 40 students and the subsidy required to sustain the school’s operation has risen to over a half-million dollars annually; therefore, the diocese is left with no other option but to close the school on June 30, 2016.”
Sacred Heart will join the ranks of other Catholic schools in the city — Cardinal McCarrick High School closed last June and St. Mary Elementary School shut down in 2007.
Sacred Heart School opened alongside the church in 1895; the school was relocated to the St. Mary’s Elementary School building at 301 Second St. in 2012, and for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, Sacred Heart and Cardinal McCarrick were merged to create Raritan Bay Preparatory School.
This school year, however, only Sacred Heart remained, but its future had not been looking bright. Erin Friedlander, spokeswoman for the diocese, said that less than half of the student population had re-enrolled for the 2016-17 school year by the time the decision to close was made.
“Families were told last year that [re-enrollment] was a very important thing,” she said, referring to if parents wanted the school to remain open. This year, the school has 191 students registered, she said, and only 80 had re-enrolled for the 2016-17 school year.
The diocese letter encouraged parents to consider sending their children to other Catholic schools in the area and indicated that nearby schools would be notified of the closure. It also said that the remainder of the school year would proceed as scheduled.
It is not likely the school would become a parish school operated exclusively by Sacred Heart Church, Friedlander said.
“To my knowledge, that has not been part of the the discussion,” she said.
The decision was one that prompted strong reaction from both families with children in the school, as well as Mayor Fred Henry. A Save Sacred Heart Elementary School Facebook group has nearly 50 members, and its description reads in part, “Sacred Heart Elementary School needs your help! We love our school and we don’t want to see it close.” A parent meeting was slated for April 26.
Henry addressed the issue at the April 20 City Council meeting, adding that he and Assemblyman John Wisniewski had met with school officials a few months ago to discuss the Cardinal McCarrick building.
“I told them, ‘Well, if anything else is going on over here, please keep my office informed about it,’ and then I hear on the street that Sacred Heart is closing, so they did not get in touch with me about it,” he said. “And I called them up, and I told them it was a little disconcerting that they didn’t get in touch with me. They were apologizing over and over, but it’s not going to change what was going on.”
In terms of how the diocese informed those involved of the closure, including parents, he said, “Personally, I do not think they went about it the right way.”
Henry said he is concerned about the real estate associated with both Cardinal McCarrick’s and Sacred Heart’s closures, but he said he was told the diocese would not make a decision about the real estate until after Bishop-elect James F. Checchio is installed as bishop May 3.