St. Joseph’s School closing
Announcement, just 3 weeks before end of school year, catches parents off guard
St. Joseph’s School in Uptown Kingston will close at the end of the current school year, and its students will be given the option of transferring to Kingston Catholic School on lower Broadway or other local Catholic schools, the Archdiocese of New York said Wednesday.
In an email to St. Joseph’s parents and the Freeman, the archdiocese cited declining enrollment as the main reason for the decision.
“St. Joseph’s has seen a decline in enrollment in recent years which has presented considerable operational challenges
to maintaining the school,” the email, signed by Archdiocese Superintendent of Schools Timothy McNiff, stated. “Unfortunately, despite our continued efforts to sustain St. Joseph’s School, it is with regret that I inform you the school will cease operations at the end of this academic year. ...
“This painful decision
was made only as a last resort, and despite everyone’s best efforts, it was not possible to change the outcome of the situation,” McNiff wrote.
Stephen Weiss, the parent of a St. Joseph’s student, said the news “caught us off guard,” coming just three weeks before the end of the school year.
“A lot people are going to be very upset,” said Weiss, a Kingston resident who has a daughter in kindergarten at the school and whose wife used to work there.
Another St. Joseph’s parent posted on the Freeman’s Facebook page Wednesday evening that her children were “absolutely devastated” by the news.
St. Joseph’s, which occupies two buildings at the corner of Wall and Pearl streets, serves students in grades prekindergarten through eight. The current enrollment total was not immediately available late Wednesday. There also was no immediate word about how many jobs might be eliminated
as a result of the closing.
Of merging the St. Joseph’s student body with that of Kingston Catholic School, McNiff wrote: “We are confident that this transition creates new potential to bring two stellar Catholic school communities closer together, thereby fostering an even stronger environment for our students’ spiritual and academic success.”
The archdiocese originally planned to close St. Joseph’s at the end of the 201213
school year but reversed that decision in February 2013. At the time, St. Joseph’s had 205 students and Kingston Catholic had 243.
When the 2013 shutdown still was expected, the school said it would seek permission from the archdiocese to operate it as an independent Catholic school, like John A. Coleman Catholic High School in the town of Ulster. There was no word Wednesday on whether such an effort will be undertaken this time.
The archdiocese announced in February 2001 that it was closing Coleman, which serves students in grades nine through 12, due to rising debt and falling enrollment. But the church approved a plan three months later to let Coleman operate as an independent Catholic school.
Coleman, the only Catholic high school in Ulster County, began operating independently in the fall of 2001 and has done so ever since.