(Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff/file)
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, in a bid to reverse the sharp decline in its urban parochial schools, is poised to shutter at least two parish schools in the heart of Dorchester while raising more than $50 million in private contributions to rebuild the surviving schools and boost teacher salaries.
The goal is to attract more pupils to the parochial school system in some of the neediest and most Catholic sections of Boston by modernizing the buildings and the administration. But church officials have concluded that they need to close two or three of the eight parish schools in Dorchester and Mattapan so that the remaining schools have enough students to remain vibrant.
Enrollment in the Dorchester and Mattapan schools has been plummeting; over the last 30 years, the number of students in the Catholic schools of those neighborhoods has dropped to 1,600 from nearly 5,000.
"The schools [in Dorchester] have experienced a steady and dramatic decline in enrollment," said archdiocesan spokesman Terrence C. Donilon. "Many of their buildings require upgrades to keep pace academically, and there is agreement that to do nothing is not an option."
While the archdiocese was still consulting with local pastors on final details of the plan yesterday, two sources familiar with the deliberations said the archdiocese is leaning toward closing St. Peter's School, by Meetinghouse Hill, as well as one or two other schools. But, the sources said, the archdiocese would aim to build one new school in Dorchester - the first new parochial school in the city in more than 50 years - and to reopen a school in the old St. Margaret's school building, on the campus of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta parish on Columbia Road.
All but one of the surviving Dorchester and Mattapan schools would be part of a single K-8 school system, overseen by a regional board and a schools director. The exception would be the parish school at St. Brendan Church in the Ashmont section of Dorchester, where school supporters decided they did not want to participate in a regionalized school system and the archdiocese agreed to allow them to opt out. The St. Brendan's school will continue to be overseen by its parish, but will still be eligible for money to improve its facilities.
The Dorchester effort will be an ambitious, larger-scale version of a consolidation in Brockton, where the archdiocese this year replaced the city's three parish schools with one school housed in two refurbished buildings. Archdiocesan officials say a regional school system is more cost-efficient and professional than a collection of parish schools overseen by priests, and they say that enrollment has increased in Brockton.
Archdiocesan officials have repeatedly said that if they do not make some kind of dramatic change to the Catholic schools in Dorchester, many of the schools will fail.
Over the last several years, Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley has approved decisions by several parishes to close parochial schools because of dwindling enrollments, but he also appointed a high-powered committee, headed by businessman Jack Connors Jr., to come up with a plan to reverse the declines. The Connors committee oversaw the consolidation of the Brockton schools and raised $12 million for that city's new system, and is now working on the plan to consolidate the Dorchester schools.
Connors, the chairman emeritus of the advertising firm Hill, Holliday, said that other than scholarship assistance from the Catholic Schools Foundation, "the people of Dorchester have had to rely on bingo nights, cake sales, and raffles" to support their schools. If priests and parents agree to the proposal, "this will be the biggest financial commitment to the Dorchester Catholic schools in at least two generations."
Boston is one of many Catholic dioceses struggling to save its schools. The Archdiocese of Washington, for example, recently proposed turning over eight of its 12 center-city schools to a charter school operator.
The Catholic schools helped generations of Catholics advance educationally and economically in the United States. But in recent years, as anti-Catholic sentiment in the country has diminished and the church's influence over parents' educational choices has waned, more and more Catholic families have opted to send their children to public or private schools.
Nationally, about 850 Catholic schools closed between 1990 and 2005, according to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Locally, the number of students in the Catholic schools has dropped to 47,000 today from 153,000 in 1965.
The archdiocese had been poised to announce its decisions today to elected officials and to school principals and teachers, and yesterday the archdiocese e-mailed legislators and city council members from Dorchester to invite them to a meeting this afternoon at the Catholic Schools Office in Dorchester to learn O'Malley's decisions. Three hours after the invitations went out, however, the archdiocese's lobbyist, Edward F. Saunders Jr., e-mailed the lawmakers again to postpone, saying, "Specific elements relative to the final implementation of the plan need additional work."
The last-minute wrinkle, according to one of the sources, arose when Dorchester priests met yesterday afternoon, and some suggested that three schools, rather than two, should be closed to ensure the remaining schools are large enough to survive. Supporters of St. Peter's were also making a last-ditch effort to save that school.
Donilon would not discuss the objections, but said, "We have some final details to work out before we make a formal announcement."
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.
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