Friends Create Heartfelt Tribute To Shuttered Mercy High: Video

RIVERHEAD, NY — It has been a year since news broke that Bishop McGann-Mercy High School would be closing and now that the dreaded closure has occurred, students and faculty alike have had to adjust to new schools and positions.

But the heartbreak, anger, and feelings of betrayal resonate still, as bewildered families struggle to make sense of the shuttering of a school that meant so much more, to all of them.

Now, two students, Molly Tuthill and Fiona Merrill, have created a video, "Forever a Monarch," where students and faculty, parents and the community open their hearts to explain what the loss means.

Shock, tears, disappointment, disbelief, heartbreak. The words echo on the video, again and again, a veritable "wave of emotion" that washed over the community and has left many stranded far from the shore of all they'd known and loved for generations.

"Molly and I shot and edited the entire documentary ourselves with the guidance of our schools TV production teachers, Mr. Wes and Mr. Stahl," Fiona said. "Our initial vision for this short documentary was to show people who weren’t involved in Mercy how the closing affected everyone — as well as pay tribute to Mercy. It all started when we realized that people who were not a part of the Mercy community did not know how much the closing altered people's lives. It was also extremely important to us to display what Mercy meant to us and so many others."

Mercy, the girls added, "was such a special place to the community and should never be forgotten. Mercy was more than a school, it was a huge extended family and was place that everyone could call home. Even though the school does not stand anymore we know that we will all be forever Monarchs."

The girls, best friends, went to Our Lady of Mercy Elementary together as well as McGann Mercy. "We have gone to school together our whole lives," Fiona said.

(Courtesy Molly Tuthill and Fiona Merrill)

Parents and students were equally livid and heartbroken in March, 2018 after they were rocked by the news that Bishop McGann-Mercy High School in Riverhead would be shutting its doors — closing a chapter on a legacy that shaped generations of lives.

The Diocese of Rockville Center stated that, as part of a long-term effort to revitalize and strengthen Catholic education on Long Island, it would consolidate two elementary schools and close the diocesan high school, stating that the schools were "no longer viable" due to decreased enrollment.

The diocese combined Our Lady of Mercy Regional School in Cutchogue and St. Isidore School in Riverhead into a new nursery through Grade 8 school on the St. Isidore site, named St. John Paul II Regional School.

Parents and students alike spoke out at the time about what they said was shocking news.

"Our family is devastated right now," said Rosanne Hendrickson, who has two sons that attended Mercy; her oldest graduated in 2015.

Maddie Hansen, who was a ninth grader at McGann Mercy High School when she got the news, told Patch: "This school means the world to me. When I found out the news I was devastated," she said.

The Diocese offered students the opportunity to enroll at St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School in West Islip, a release said. The diocese provides transportation, guidance counseling and tuition grants to students who continue at a diocesan school — but many expressed outrage at the long distances students would have to travel.

Aquebogue resident Debbie Kneidl, who once worked at Mercy, said, "Rockville Center has just cut off the East End." Catholic education, she added, is a ministry. "It is where children of God are taught to be disciples."

Children who attend Catholic school, she said, are rooted in their faith and are taught daily to serve and minister to others.

"These children are often the ones who keep Catholicism moving forward in a community," Kneidl said. "Bishop Barres, under the direction and suggestion of the Chief Financial Officer for Rockville Centre Tom Doodian, have done nothing other than to suggest to our East End community that we are not as important, and as worthy, as those in western Suffolk or Nassau. They are saying we as a community do not deserve the same opportunities. They are saying money is more important than doing God's work. Shame on them!"

The three schools closed at the end of the last school year in June, 2018, and St. John Paul II Regional School opened in September.

Enrollment at the three schools, all on the East End has fallen 37 percent since 2011, the Diocese said.

The high school alone was subsidized $16.3 million from 2007 through the last school year and was expected to require an additional $2.3 million in support, a release last year said. The enrollment decline partially reflects a 6.2 percent drop in the school-age population in Suffolk County between 2011 and 2016, a loss of 19,000 children, according to data from the 2016 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, the Diocese said.

"We recognize the pain and disruption that this decision causes for our beloved school families," said Most Reverend John O. Barres, Bishop, Diocese of Rockville Centre.