Archdiocese shut doors, but school lives on

Paula Noto's kindergarten classroom at the new St. Peter Academy in South Boston came together one wooden block at a time.

Children from around the neighborhood helped Noto unpack boxes of blocks, puzzles, storybooks, games, and paintbrushes that she had used in her old classroom five blocks away. Noto's and the children's old school was closed in June as part of the Archdiocese of Boston's massive shuttering of Catholic schools and parishes.

But the parents, pupils, and staff of the former St. Peter School refused to allow the decision to crumble their tight-knit community. In three months' time, they secured the money and a building to reopen St. Peter independently. Classes start today.

''This is where I wanted to be," said Noto, who did not interview for any other teaching jobs this summer. ''This school was never about a building. It was the people in it -- the parents, the faculty, and the students. Not many schools could pull this off."

The rebirth of St. Peter, a parish school started more than 50 years ago by South Boston's Lithuanian community, is unusual. Nationally, only a few Catholic schools -- propelled by parent devotion -- have tried to survive as private institutions after they were closed by an archdiocese or a religious order, according to the National Catholic Education Association in Washington, D.C. In some cases, the schools only extended their inevitable closing by a few years, but others have prospered.

''Whether a school can reinvent itself and make itself viable is a difficult question to answer," said Michael Guerra, the association's president. ''It's hard to draw generalizations from a handful of examples."

Success often hinges on good financial planning and strong support among alumni, parents, and the business community, he said. Even then schools can flounder.

Immaculata Preparatory High School in Washington, D.C., seemed to have the right mix of strong alumni and parental support to continue as a private institution after its closing in the mid-1980s by the Sisters of Providence, but survived for only a few years because of mounting debt.

The Gesu School in Philadelphia, however, has flourished in the 11 years since its closing as a parish school. Gesu formed a partnership with the Jesuits and the Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, at the encouragement of the archdiocese there, which substantially subsidized the private school for the first three years. The elementary school boasts an endowment today of approximately $5 million.

''It was a struggle financially," said Sister Ellen Convey, the principal, ''but it's always a struggle financially to run a Catholic school. . . . If a school is making a difference, people will invest in it."

Locally, St. Peter follows in the footsteps of Elizabeth Seton Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Dorchester that opened last fall after the closing of Monsignor Ryan Memorial High School by the archdiocese.

But unlike Elizabeth Seton, which is struggling financially in an old school building at St. Gregory's, St. Peter Academy has not received the blessing of the archdiocese to call itself a Catholic school or market itself as practicing Catholic rituals.

''They're not a Catholic school," said Sister Kathleen Carr, superintendent of schools for the Boston Archdiocese. The new school ''is not viewed as a continuation of the St. Peter School. That school closed in June."

The archdiocese wanted the parents to send their children to other Catholic elementary schools in South Boston, but both the parents and the children say the warmth and sense of community at St. Peter cannot be matched anywhere else.

The strong Catholic faith of the parents is apparent at St. Peter Academy, housed in an East Fifth Street brick building that had been vacant for five years. Seven white tiles of the entryway floor form a cross, and every classroom has a statue of the Virgin Mary. All pupils will have Bibles and rosary beads, pray three times a day, and attend daily religion classes.

At the same time, the academy intends to carve a new image for itself. No longer will there be ties for the boys and navy blue and maroon smocks for the girls. Instead, they will wear polo shirts in one of the school's new colors, Christmas red or green -- a combination that prompted some pupils to nickname the school St. Nicholas Academy.

James McNiff, a 9-year-old fourth-grader who has been helping to set up the classrooms, said he has been warming to his new surroundings with each coat of paint and each nail hammered.

''Now I look around I'm happy," he said.

The school has enrolled 138 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grade, down from 177 last year at the original school. Parents say tuition will cover about 85 percent of the $500,000 needed to run the school. They've raised more than $30,000 so far through fund-raisers and plan two more events in the next few weeks.

Some parents filed a lawsuit in June in Suffolk Superior Court against the archdiocese over control of a bank account with nearly $100,000 of fund-raising for the old school.

Parents are especially grateful that most of the school staff stuck with them.

''They took as much as a risk as we did," said Robert Miller, a parent who oversees the finances. ''If they left, there was nothing we could do" to save the school.

The opening came down to the wire. Parents had hoped to buy the old St. Peter School building, but the archdiocese turned down the offer in late June. Negotiations for another building on the west side of South Boston started to break down by early August. Then two anonymous donors from South Boston offered free use of the vacant office building on East Fifth Street so long as the school paid the utilities and insurance.

Parents and teachers jumped at the offer, even though it was only temporary and the rooms are small.

''We would have gone into a barn," said Annie Ryan, a parent.

Teachers had been planning to hold classes in their homes.

In a flurry of renovations that began in mid-August, parents, teachers, and members of local unions knocked down a couple of walls, tore up the filthy beige and blue carpeting, laid down gray and white floor tiles, replaced all the ceiling tiles and light bulbs, and painted each classroom according to the teacher's preference.

''We would make 'Extreme Makeovers' look bad," Jill Sullivan, a parent, said of the quick renovation.

The school was supposed to open Thursday, but the ribbon-cutting was postponed to today because the fire alarm system required further testing before an occupancy permit could be issued.

''We are just happy we are going to open and stay together," said Elin Peterson, a mother of three. ''We can weather the storm. We are not in a hurry to leave here. As long as we are together, that's all that is important."