Sad to see this. Per the P-D:

St. Elizabeth Academy, Catholic school for girls in St. Louis, to close after 130 years

ST. LOUIS • The Catholic order that has operated St. Elizabeth Academy since 1882 announced this afternoon it is closing the high school at the end of the current school year.

The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of O'Fallon, Mo., announced the closure in a statement this afternoon. The school, at 3401 Arsenal Street, has seen declining enrollment that forced the decision, according to the statement. Last year's enrollment was 149.

"With great sadness, the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of O'Fallon, Mo., have approved the recommendation of the St. Elizabeth Academy Board of Directors to close St. Elizabeth Academy," the news release said.

The school will close at the end of the 2013 school year.

"For more than a century, St. Elizabeth Academy has made a positive difference in the lives of thousands of young women, carrying out our mission to develop the successful woman inside each girl," said said Sister Susan Borgel, president of the school, in a statement. "That is why this was such a heartbreaking decision."

Borgel said the decision followed three years of discussion.

The statement said the school "remains grateful to all who have invested time and energy in helping students, throughout its long and rich history, become successful in life."

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/educ ... 58e25.html

Also, I put this here because I was unsure where else it would be appropriate.

this is really sad news, but the main building (that book-ends crittenden) would make an incredible residential conversion. i'm confident the archdiocese will insist that the whole thing be demolished though. and despite preservation review i'm sure they'll get their way. now is probably a good time to start writing to various people opposing demolition.

The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood own the school, not the Archdiocese. Hopefully they can sell the grounds to a developer who can re-use the beautiful buildings.

It is sad though that this 130 year old institution is closing forever. On par with Tower Grove Park and Shaw's Garden, the school has been there since the beginning with the neighborhood literally growing around it. So many of St. Louis' women have received there education from St. Elizabeth over the years. It's a sad loss.

This just further illustrates the exodus of Southside Catholics. St. Johns HS closed a few years ago. Now St. Elizabeths. Many Catholic grade schools have closed as well.
This is very sad. So many friends of mine attended St. Elizabeth. I'm sure they are mourning today. If I'm not mistaken, St. Mary's, Rosati Kain, SLU HS, Ritter and Dubourg continue to thrive. ( I may have forgotten a few)
At least there are still several good Catholic schools open in the City.

DannyJ wrote:The Sisters of the Most Precious Blood own the school, not the Archdiocese.

good to know. thanks for the correction.

City schools. We can't fix the bad ones and we can't keep the good ones open. Sad news.

This just further illustrates the exodus of Southside Catholics. St. Johns HS closed a few years ago. Now St. Elizabeths. Many Catholic grade schools have closed as well.

I think it illustrates people leaving the catholic church and private education rather than people leaving the city. County catholic schools are facing the same issues regarding attendance.

While its sad that St. Elizabeth's is closing, other's are doing very well as you said. I think the remaining catholic high schools are doing better than their counterparts in the county. They have no competition.

Could be a good opprotunity for a Charter like Confluence Academy, or an expansion of existing private secular school, the demographics of the neighborhood are good and getting better, just not exclusivly Catholic

DogtownBnR wrote:This just further illustrates the exodus of Southside Catholics. St. Johns HS closed a few years ago. Now St. Elizabeths. Many Catholic grade schools have closed as well.
This is very sad. So many friends of mine attended St. Elizabeth. I'm sure they are mourning today. If I'm not mistaken, St. Mary's, Rosati Kain, SLU HS, Ritter and Dubourg continue to thrive. ( I may have forgotten a few)
At least there are still several good Catholic schools open in the City.

I agree that it's very sad -- so much history. I don't think the closure is necessarily a statement on the City and its demographics but rather part of an overall trend everywhere.

IMO, private schools (both religious and secular) are at a point where the strong will become stronger and the weak and "middling" will close. Technology and infrastructure are very expensive, and today's schools need to "keep up" in order to serve their students. What's a loss for St. Elizabeth's will probably be a gain for Rosati-Kain, Notre Dame and Cor Jesu.

Even the powerhouse schools (in this case, like Cor Jesu and Rosati-Kain, not sure about ND) are going to have to update and market themselves to compete for students in today's economy. That's true everywhere, not just in StL.

^ I think you hit the nail on the head. Changing demographics were a big factor, but hardly the only one. A Catholic education used to be relatively inexpensive, but is becoming cost-prohibitive for many families, especially larger ones.

As you mentioned technology and infrastructure are becoming very expensive, but with almost no young people joining religious orders labor costs are rising as well, because there are no more nuns and priest to essentially serve as free labor.

The school hire laypeople and can't afford to pay them a competitive salary, and thus they have a tough time attracting and retaining quality teachers. And if you can't afford to pay good teachers, why should parents pay exorbitant tuition?

Also, fewer families feel a religious obligation to send there kids to Catholic schools (or even attend mass and tithe regularly) which further erodes enrollment and funds.

Unfortunately for the Catholic schools the leadership (both private at diocesan) is woefully ill-equipped to deal with this changing environment. Many are priests and nuns, and although they are intelligent and educated, struggle to run a school that faces these issues. Since there aren't any young priests coming to replace the aging ones much of the leadership at the archdiocesan level either refuses to accept the new reality or lacks the skills to adapt to it.

ebo wrote:^ I think you hit the nail on the head. Changing demographics were a big factor, but hardly the only one. A Catholic education used to be relatively inexpensive, but is becoming cost-prohibitive for many families, especially larger ones.

Agreed. And when it's not cost-*prohibitive*, per se, it becomes an question of not CAN we afford this but SHOULD we afford this? Tuition at a girls Catholic HS can wind up being an extra $1000/month (i.e., $12,000/year, when all is said and done, for tuition plus tech fees, books, etc.) per kid. Who's to blame a "standard" two-kids family for saying "Hmmm, for another $1,000/month I can afford this house in the XYZ suburban district and pay no tuition."

I think what often gets widely-labeled as "exodus" and "white flight" is really a matter of families taking a hard look at their circumstances and coming up with the best possible solution in their particular case, using the resources they have.

St. Louis takes its Catholic high schools very seriously, so (JMHO!) thought is that schools like Chaminade, Priory, Villa, etc - institutions with big endowments, prominent (read: wealthy) alumni and affluent families - will do just fine, as those families don't necessarily have to make the difficult trade-offs. However schools with a more middle-class demographic like St. Elizabeths (and others) are definitely more susceptible to the economic climate.

Seems crazy that they couldn't support a smaller school with alumni help.

Seems like it would be natural to transition this to another school type use. Two schools in the area possibly looking to expand:

St. Louis Language Immersion has been one of the more successful charter schools and has aggressive (too?) expansion plans, with two locations already.

St. Margaret of Scotland apparently is one of the few catholic schools in the city with increasing enrollment and has a space crunch in their current building which is pretty landlocked.

Pure speculation here, but seems like the building would be a good fit for both.

There was a timely article in yesterday's New York Times: Catholic Schools Await More Closing Bells

For 135 years, Holy Cross School has taught at the Crossroads of the World, educating first the offspring of longshoremen and dockworkers, now the children of bus company, hotel and office workers in Times Square.
...
But now, Holy Cross is one of 28 elementary schools being considered for closing this year by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The proposed shutdowns are the latest in a wave that has swept away Catholic elementary schools in the Northeast and Midwest in recent decades.

Seems like Catholic education is in transition not just locally, but nationwide.

St. Elisabeth wasn't an Archdiocesan school, but the Archdiocesan schools will also be undergoing some changes soon:
Archdiocese to announce in February final plans for strengthening Catholic education
Archbishop unveils vision for parish schools

All girls charter high school?

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/educ ... 56a12.html