As our loyal readers will recall, I reported in this space about a week ago that Catholic Schools St. Patrick’s Academy and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton school were in dire straits financially.
Well, we have an answer to my reporting. Bishop Jaime Soto announced the closing of St. Patrick’s and St. Charles schools and combined them with St. Roberts school effective at the end of this school year.
My biggest beef (disagreement) with Bishop Soto is he, like most his age, have no long-term vision or plan, it’s only short term quick fixes. This leads to bigger problems down the road. By folding the three school’s enrollments into one, quite a few students will be left out or behind. Is it a lottery system to get into the new entity? What about existing students at St Roberts? What happens to the buildings at St Rose (this is where St Patrick is located) or St Charles? It sounds like the plan is to leave the buildings as is, just lock them. This creates a larger issue, as abandoned buildings in this part of town tend to attract homeless, vagrants, and people generally up to no good. All three schools are in the very economically depressed South Sacramento/Hollywood Park/Meadowview area. Crime and homelessness are very large in these areas, look it up. Imagine trying to worship at a church with a decaying, decrepit building on site, and possibly a vagrant problem to boot. NO Thanks.
There is a great amount of irony in what I learned this past weekend about St. Roberts school. A friend’s father who goes to church with me, informed me that back in the day, St. Roberts School was like Last Chance U. In a sense, it was for troublemakers, not so much for Rhoades Scholars. His kids barely got in. He took a role on the school’s board of directors and pushed a needed fundraiser so they were not too reliant on the Diocese for funding. They built a rainy-day fund, and ironically, that is the only reason they are likely around to this day. You may recall I mentioned in the warning blog about their financial wellbeing that it’s not just money to run the schools that was cut off, it was the ability to borrow money as well.
In closing, I feel bad for the parishioners and children; especially, uprooting your kid from the school they go to, and trying to find another school is unneeded stress. As mentioned, these schools served underprivileged areas of Sacramento, with minorities and poor being affected the most. What effect will it have long term on the churches? It remains to be seen, but I assume it would be like what happened at my folk’s parish when St Elizabeth school was built, the younger families with students at the school started attending that church, leaving my parent’s church with mostly older folks. My point being, the schools are very important to the church they serve, St. Roberts church will win long term here. The others? It may start a slow decline, no one really knows. As mentioned before, there is a large gap in the 18-40 year old demographic at most Catholic churches, that gap will only get larger over time.
It sucks, but we called it here in this blog.
Jake the Snake
PS St. Elizabeth Ann Seton will continue next year but it appears to be circling the drain as well. If it were to close, there would be zero Catholic schools in the southern part of the county.