Buffalo Diocese to close 10 schools, 7 in Southtowns

Ten Catholic elementary schools in suburban and rural Western New York will close at the end of the school year, Bishop Richard Malone announced Wednesday.

Malone’s decision comes on the back of three years of exhaustive Diocese of Buffalo research touching the demographics, finances and educational relevance of the 49 elementary schools it owns. Seven of the schools that will close are in the Southtowns. Total enrollment at the targeted schools is 1,154 students in the current academic year. The fate of individual faculty and staff in the closed schools is not yet clear, though Diocesan officials said they would work with the teachers and their union to find a place for them.

The schools that will be closed are:

• Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary School, a K-8 school in Elma with 102 students and 18 faculty and staff.

• Fourteen Holy Helpers, a K-8 school in West Seneca with 136 students and 20 faculty and staff.

• Our Lady of Pompeii School, a K-8 school in Lancaster with 70 students and 14 faculty and staff.

• Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School, a K-8 school in Orchard Park with 135 students and 24 faculty and staff.

• St. Bernadette School, a K-8 school in Orchard Park with 148 students and 22 faculty and staff.

• St. Francis of Assisi School, a K-8 school in the Town of Tonawanda with 152 students and 19 faculty and staff.

• St. Joseph School, a K-8 school in Gowanda with 42 students and 16 faculty and staff.

• St. Leo the Great School, a K-8 school in Amherst with 99 students and 24 faculty and staff.

• St. Mary of the Lake School, a K-8 school in Hamburg with 122 students and 23 faculty and staff.

• St. Vincent dePaul School, a K-8 school in Spring Brook with 148 students and 15 faculty and staff.

Click here for detailed profiles of the 10 schools that are slated to be closed.

Diocese officials say its “Faith in Tomorrow” initiative is a sustainable path forward for Catholic elementary education in Western New York, where enrollment has been falling for years and finances have become a major issue.

“Regarding the school closures, this will be a difficult decision for many to accept, but these reductions are necessary and will allow us to sustain and eventually strengthen our remaining Catholic elementary schools,” Malone said. “This is an important responsibility I bear as bishop.”

The remaining 39 parish schools will transition into a new model, overseen by lay boards with individual oversight over each school and a reinvigorated curriculum focusing on STREAM: science, technology, religion, engineering, arts and math.

The seven diocesan schools in the city of Buffalo will remain open.

Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, the Diocese has already closed 29 Catholic elementary schools in the past decade and merged 12 others.

“I encourage families of closing schools to enroll in any other Catholic school, while remaining members of their current parishes,” Malone said. “They will continue to qualify for the parishioner tuition rate at a school in another parish. We are not alone in this situation. Not a single public school district in Western New York is growing enrollment.”

Catholic school tuition has increased by 7 percent recently, while family income has decreased by 7.7 percent, according to Diocese foundation data.

The affordability of the schools has become a major issue, especially in a landscape with stiff competition from private, charter and public schools and falling enrollment across the board.

The “Faith in Tomorrow” vision was first published in June 2011, and the Diocese has commissioned a significant amount of research and analysis since that time. School officials, parents and stakeholders met in cluster meetings in October and December 2013, and along with an Advisory Council they developed recommendations for Malone.

The closed schools will dominate headlines, but there were other elements to Wednesday’s announcement. Malone announced that the Diocese is working with The BISON Fund on a plan to fund new scholarships for students who have applied to transfer out of low-performing Buffalo elementary schools. Buffalo students have the legal right to transfer into high-performing schools, but the demand far exceeds the available space.

Malone also renewed his call for the state to pass a proposed tax credit for any person or business that makes a donation to public schools or private scholarships.

Click here for the most recent ranking of Western New Yorks’s 49 Catholic elementary schools, according to Business First.