South Orange Catholic Schools Contemplate Closing of St. Joseph's

The reported closure of St. Joseph's Catholic School in Maplewood has left the two Catholic schools in South Orange wondering how they will be affected, officials from the Newark Archdiocese said.

Days after St. Joseph's pastor Michael Saporito announced at a sermon that the school would close, Christine H. Lopez, principal of Marylawn, an all-girl's Catholic high school in South Orange, said she was saddened and unsure how her school could be impacted.

"It's very early," she said. "We wanted to be sensitive to the fact that they're upset."

She added that officials from St. Joseph's approached Marylawn for information to give to students who might want to enroll.

"We would be more than open to having those students come to Marylawn," Lopez said. "Any of the girls."

Enrollment at Marylawn is steady at around 150 to 160 students. Lopez said that while the school could hold more, they feel fortunate not to have been dogged by the low enrollments that have hurt other Catholic schools around the country.

"Given the economy we count ourselves very lucky that things are going fine," she said.

Marylawn will also open a new middle school this September for seventh and eighth grade girls. It will open in a separate wing of the school's campus on Scotland Road. Lopez said the plans for this new middle school have been in the works for several years, and in the last two years, school administrators collected feedback from parents, alumni and other community members. The church is expecting the first year's enrollment to be around 15 or 20, Lopez said.

Jim Goodness, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark, said that Saporito, the pastor at St. Joseph's, has given the school another month to raise enrollment. The school also increased its cost of tuition, he said. Saporito will see what happens before making any final decision on whether to shutter the school, Goodness said.

Meanwhile, at South Orange's other Catholic school, Our Lady of Sorrows, enrollment stands at 190, Goodness said.

St. Joseph's enrollment was 165 this school year, down more than 50 from last year and a little more than a half of what it was in 2003.

Last week the scene at Our Lady of Sorrows was bustling with kids running around the parking lot across the street, playing games at recess.

Principal Judith Blair declined to comment.

Across New Jersey and the nation, enrollment at Catholic schools has trended downward, Goodness said.

"The enrollment issue at Catholic schools in most of the country is fairly consistent," Goodness said. "Enrollment is down, and it has been this way for a number of years."

The economy is part of the reason, according to Goodness. In New Jersey, he said many families who send their children to Catholic school struggle with paying private tuition, particularly on top of the property taxes they already pay, which go toward public schools.

"The sacrifices that Catholic school families make—often parents working two or three jobs to ensure that they can afford the tuition investment for their children—is a strain," Goodness said.