St. Ann parents looking at options

From the BCCT.

St. Ann parents looking at options
By: GEMA MARIA DUARTE
Bucks County Courier Times

About 90 elementary students will be placed in different schools after the parochial school closes in June.

The parents of children at St. Mark School say they'll welcome with open arms students from St. Ann School, which is being closed.

"We are a community," said Joe Kulak, a St. Mark parent whose family lives in the borough. "We have to stick together."

With the closure of St. Ann School in June, about 90 elementary students - including about 40 who live in the borough - will be placed in different schools, the Rev. James Day, pastor of St. Ann, said Thursday afternoon.

He said the students are also being enrolled at Our Lady of Grace in Penndel, Immaculate Conception in Bristol Township and St. Michael the Archangel in Tullytown.

Declining enrollment is decimating St. Ann, which costs $660,000 a year to operate, school officials said. In 1993, enrollment peaked at 213 students. But it has been declining steadily since 2000.

St. Ann isn't the first Catholic elementary school to close in the region, though it is the first to close in Bucks. Parish elementary schools throughout the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have been merging or closing over the past five years due to falling enrollment.

The archdiocese owns the school property and, as of Thursday, didn't have any plans for it, said Donna Farrell, spokeswoman for the archdiocese.

Bristol residents Brian and Charlene McGinley said they'll enroll their child at St. Mark. "It's close by," Charlene McGinley said.

St. Mark officials declined to comment on the enrollment process this week or to discuss how many students they expect.

Brooke Ulinski, a St. Mark parent, said an enrollment increase would help that school keep tuition stable. The Bristol Township mother said she pays about $5,500 a year for her three children to attend St. Mark.

"Let's say 50 students don't come back because their parents can't pay their tuition because of the economy; those kids could be replaced by students coming from St. Ann," she said. "I know St. Mark is not at risk of closing, but it's something to think about."

Virginia Huffnagle, also a St. Mark parent, said she doesn't believe an increase in enrollment would affect the classroom dynamics at St. Mark.

"Some classrooms may have one or two more students," she said Wednesday, as she picked up her 12-year-old stepdaughter. "Students will get the same attention and good education."

Max Mendez, a St. Ann father, said his two children will be enrolled at St. Joseph the Worker in Fallsington.

"It's a better place for my children to continue receiving a good Catholic education," he said.

Trish Lawlor, a St. Ann mother, said for the time being she'll register her two children to attend Bristol's public elementary school, Warren Snyder-John Girotti School.

"If I don't move by the summer, I'll enroll them at St. Mark," she said. "I'm looking to move to a town that the school district has school bus services."

April 03, 2009 02:10 AM