Shutting its doorsStudents try to raise money after St. Joseph of the Palisades announces closure

After the announcement two weeks ago that St. Joseph of the Palisades High School in West New York will close indefinitely in June due to shrinking enrollment and funding, students remain hopeful that the school can be saved.
“We are trying to pull some fundraisers together,” said sophomore Fernando Rios last week. “I believe it is going to help. I believe there is some hope left that we can raise enough money to keep the school open.”
He added that some students paid $3 on Wednesday to dress down for the day in an effort to raise money for the school.

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“Bake sales are not going to do it. This is not a question of selling a few cupcakes.” – David Heatherington
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“We are not going to give up without a fight,” said freshman Megan Wofsy.
School officials said they realize the students are upset.
“These kids are very anxious to save the school,” said David Heatherington, the development director at the school. “The point, though, that they have to understand is that bake sales are not going to do it. This is not a question of selling a few cupcakes.”
The school needs 70 more students plus $400,000 to stay open, according to Jim Goodness, a spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. He added that the school would need even more than that to continue in the future and that the parish, which has its own debt of $1.5 million, can no longer afford to subsidize the school.
“It just really has become impossible for that school to continue,” said Goodness. “That is something that the board of the school has known for some time. They were first really made aware of the problems and the depth of the problems this September, as the students began to leave for financial reasons.”

Declining enrollment

As a result, school officials initiated an aggressive marketing plan with new brochures to attract more freshmen last October, said Goodness. However, he said, only 30 new students enrolled for next fall. He added that enrollment has been decreasing for about eight years.
Fewer donations to the school and scholarships for students have also added to the crisis, and efforts to raise enough money to save the school have failed, said Heatherington.
“We were given a deadline and we did our best to reach those objectives,” he said.
Goodness said the St. Joseph’s Schools Advisory Board tried to devise a plausible plan to help the school in time.
“The solution that the board came up with was that they would let go of a number of teachers and with that, they would have obviously fewer classes and fewer course offerings,” he said.
He added that they may have also had to ask students to pay for extras like sports and clubs.
“We said that is an unrealistic and unfair assumption,” said Goodness. “You can’t ask people to pay more for less.”
Goodness said the school will host an open house Thursday night, during which St. Joseph students and parents will be able to get more information about other schools in the archdiocese.
He also said that St. Joseph employees will be given preferential consideration for positions at other archdiocese schools over applicants who have not worked within the system.
This may help ease tensions that started two weeks ago, when several students and parents learned about the school closing from a local newspaper article.

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“We are distressed that this whole situation has come about and we can understand exactly how people feel.” – Jim Goodness
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The information was leaked by someone within the school community, said Goodness, and many people were outraged. Some rallied outside the church last Sunday to protest the closing and demand more time for raising money.
“We are distressed that this whole situation has come about, and we can understand exactly how people feel,” said Goodness. He acknowledged that it was an improper way for the students and parents to find out about the situation.
“Those people should have heard about the closure of the school from the school,” said Goodness.
The final word on the closing came in a Feb. 13 letter from Archbishop John J. Myers to Rev. Gregory Studerus.
School officials said St. Joseph students are primarily from Hudson County and that about half are from West New York. The school, at 5400 Broadway, has been open for 78 years and currently serves 222 students. Tuition is $6,800 a year.

Amanda Staab can be reached at astaab@hudsonreporter.com.

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