The Chicago Archdiocese has announced that one more school will close at the end of the academic year, just one year short of celebrating its centennial.
St. Edmund Catholic School in west suburban Oak Park could not overcome years of declining enrollment and financial difficulties, the archdiocese said. There are three other Catholic schools in Oak Park: Ascension, St. Giles and St. Catherine Siena-St. Lucy.
"There are good Catholic schools in and around Oak Park," said Jim Rigg, superintendent of Catholic schools. "It's our sincerest hope the students of St. Edmund continue to attend our schools."
The principal at Northside Catholic Academy also notified families this week that St. Margaret Mary in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood likely will become a parish served by the academy, which now serves six parishes in Chicago's Edgewater and Rogers Park neighborhoods. The St. Margaret Mary campus expects to house middle school students, though Archbishop Blase Cupich still must make the final decision.
Meanwhile, teachers and parents at St. Alphonsus Liguori School, where supporters raised $300,000, still await final word on the fate of the Prospect Heights school.
Rigg said that aside from St. Alphonsus Liguori, no other closings or consolidations will take place this year, and all other schools will remain open for the 2016-17 year. The archdiocese will continue to work with schools that are underenrolled and struggling financially.
"We see closure as a last resort," he said.
"If there was a realistic way to keep St. Edmund open, we would," he later added. "It had run out of time."
Last week, the archdiocese announced that three other schools would close at the end of the academic year: St. Agatha Catholic Academy, an early childhood program in Chicago's Lawndale community; St. Peter, an elementary school in northwest suburban Antioch; and Seton Academy, a high school in south suburban South Holland.
Only 103 students are enrolled at St. Edmund, with many coming from Oak Park, River Forest and Chicago. The school also faced a $290,000 deficit, Rigg said.
In addition to helping families transfer to other Catholic schools, Rigg said the archdiocese will help faculty members who hope to keep working in Chicago's Catholic school system, the nation's largest.
Cheryl Bernard, of Forest Park, said she wished she had known about the school's precarious position when she enrolled her 6-year-old daughter Taylor two years ago. Her previous school, St. Bernardine in Forest Park, closed in 2013. St. Edmund was one of the alternatives recommended by the archdiocese.
"I'm thinking if they told us to go to the school they should be in OK shape," she said. "Lo and behold. … We knew the school was small, but we didn't know it was going to shut down the way it did," she said. "Am I going to keep enrolling her and have to do this again in three years?"
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