St. Edward school in Little Rock says this year is its last

A 134-year-old Catholic school in downtown Little Rock will close at the end of the school year because of financial struggles, church officials said Thursday.

Parents, school staff members and parishioners were told about the closure of St. Edward Catholic School by the Rev. Juan Manjarrez in an emotional meeting Wednesday.

At the meeting, Manjarrez said “keeping the school open would place an impossible financial burden on the parish,” according to a news release about the closure.

Daniel Taylor, who is an alumnus of the school and whose 8-year-old son is enrolled in second grade there, called the announcement “devastating.”

“My feet have been kicked out from underneath me,” Taylor, 34, said. “I still haven’t accepted it yet, in my head and my heart. I haven’t.”

The school, on Sherman Street across from MacArthur Park, is among the city’s oldest and is part of its second-oldest Catholic parish. It serves about 143 students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, said Theresa Hall, superintendent of the Diocese of Little Rock Office of Catholic Schools.

She described the school as having a “beautiful family atmosphere” and said its community is “hurt” over the announcement.

“They’re saddened, as we all are, anytime a Catholic school closes,” said Hall, who taught at the school for 17 years and once served as its principal. “St. Edward’s has always been a parish school that is like family. In this case, that family has to separate, so it’s a sad time for them.”

Part of the issue, Hall said, is a subsidy that is typically offered from a parish to its school that the parish can no longer afford to provide. She did not have specific information about the source of that issue.

Church pastoral and finance councils also recently reviewed projected enrollment numbers and financial needs for the coming school year and found them untenable.

Manjarrez referred a request for comment to the diocese. Financial information about the parish was not immediately available from the diocese Thursday night.

The school at St. Edward has been in dire straits since at least the 2017-18 school year, when parents were told at a May town-hall meeting that the school’s future could be in peril.

They responded with fundraising and volunteer efforts that included working in the library, teaching music classes and even cleaning the school, Hall said.

“[Parents have] been fighting all year, but they’ve been taking resources away,” said John Collins, the parent of a fifth-grader who has attended the school since pre-kindergarten.

He described program and staffing cuts at the school, linking them to enrollment declines.

“You threatened to close the school, you started getting rid of teachers, you canceled programs … then you come in and tell us it’s closed,” he said, adding that he was “frustrated, very frustrated.”

Even after Wednesday’s meeting, Taylor said several parents stayed on campus to continue preparations for a Saturday fundraiser. That event now will benefit teachers and staff members.

Hall said she has reached out to principals of Catholic schools in Little Rock and North Little Rock to figure out if they have open slots for the coming school year. She hoped to find a place for all families who want to remain in the Catholic school system.

At one school with openings, St. Theresa Catholic School, Principal Kristy Dunn said she has “a stack of phone messages I need to return” from St. Edward parents.

“We’ve always thought of St. Edward’s as our sister or our cousin school,” she said. “It hurts my heart that a Catholic school closes, especially one with such a rich history and tradition.”

Parents said they are exploring their options, though Taylor noted that St. Edward was among more affordable Catholic school choices in the area.

A website lists annual tuition at St. Edward as $4,356 for Catholic students and $5,889 for non-Catholic students. Many students received scholarships, Hall said.

Collins said his son, who is 10, had tears in his eyes when he spoke to the crowd after the closing announcement Wednesday.

“He had the courage to speak his mind,” Collins said. “[He said] ‘I’ve never been to another school, I don’t want to go to another school, all of my friends are here, I love St. Edward’s. Please don’t close it.’”

This is the first closure of a Catholic school in Arkansas since 2013, when St. Joseph Catholic School in Pine Bluff and St. Raphael in Springdale closed. Both of those closures were attributed to enrollment and money problems.

Hall said one thing contributing to falling enrollments is “more choices per parent,” where there are simply more private and charter schools to choose from.

No other Catholic schools in the state are being considered for closure this year, she said.

Nationally, about 20 percent of Catholic schools have closed over the past 20 years. Roughly 1,300 have shut down in the past decade, said Sister Dale McDonald, director of public policy for the National Catholic Educational Association.

“The basic fact is finances,” she said. “Schools just don’t bring in enough money to continue to operate.”

Falling church attendance over four decades, rising costs for things like staff members’ health care and diminished enrollments all have played a part in shrinking schools and straining budgets.

As enrollments fall, schools sometimes try to compensate by raising tuition, which can deter middle-class families whose incomes don’t qualify for scholarships from enrolling their children, McDonald said, creating a “spiral. … If middle-income parents can’t get assistance, we lose them. We’re losing them in great numbers.”

Though she couldn’t speak to specific issues that might have affected St. Edward, she said it can be burdensome to maintain schools that may be operating in older buildings.

She added that the South generally is one area where there has been growth in Catholic education, while more losses of Catholic schools have been observed in the Midwest and Northeast.

Dunn, the St. Theresa principal, said enrollment has been growing there thanks to a thriving Hispanic community in southwest Little Rock.

After the St. Edward school closes May 29, Arkansas will have 27 Catholic schools across grade levels.

“My feet have been kicked out from underneath me. I still haven’t accepted it yet, in my head and my heart. I haven’t.” — Daniel Taylor, alumnus of St. Edward Catholic School