The Archdiocese of Chicago plans to close six Catholic grade schools this year, citing declining enrollment and ongoing financial losses.<\/p>\n
Four of the schools are in Chicago:<\/p>\n
The schools, pre-K through eighth grade, will close at the end of the school year, Greg Richmond, superintendent of schools for the Chicago Archdiocese, said in a statement.
\n\u201cWe made these decisions with heavy hearts after months of discussions with each school,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe know the importance of these schools in each community. Unfortunately, the enrollment of each school is too low, and the ongoing deficits are too high,\u201d Richmond said. \u201cMany people have worked hard at each school to raise money and try to boost enrollment. We recognize and value those efforts but, in the end, the schools were not able to close the gaps and they are no longer sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The archdiocese has been losing students and schools since its peak enrollment of 366,000 students in the mid-1960s. Enrollment has declined since then, propelled by the introduction of charter schools in the 1990s, and the church\u2019s clergy sex abuse scandals in the early 2000s \u2014 which have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements and financial strain for the church.
\nMore than 67,000 students were enrolled at 186 Catholic schools in Cook and Lake counties in 2024, according to the archdiocese.<\/p>\n
The six schools slated for closure had declining enrollment over the last decade, although their enrollment was relatively flat since 2020, according to filings with the Illinois State Board of Education. The two suburban schools, St. Hubert and Our Lady of Humility, had a little more than 200 students for the 2024-2025 school year:
\nEach Chicago school had lower numbers: St. Bruno and St. Richard had 191 students; St. Jerome had 114 across its two campuses; St Francis Borgia had 157; St. Stanislaus Kostka had 137.<\/p>\n
Eleventh Ward Ald. Nicole Lee lamented the closure of St. Jerome in Armour Square, built in 1922 and originally attended by the area\u2019s Croatian population.
\n\u201cSt. Jerome\u2019s has played a big role in educating our young people and the loss of this institution will be deeply felt,\u201d she said in a social media post.
\nThe school\u2019s pastor, the Rev. Antonio Musa, said the school had an enrollment of 95 students this year and an expected deficit of $450,000.
\nThe \u201cfinancial burden of such a large deficit has become unbearable for the Parish at this time, and the Archdiocese decided to close the School,\u201d he said in a social media post.<\/p>\n
The school lost many students in the last couple years, Musa said, after Illinois got rid of a program that funded scholarships for private school tuition. He said demographic trends in the area were not working in the school\u2019s favor, and that the school had recently invested $4.5 million in the school\u2019s campus over the last few years.
\n\u201cOne of our hopes was that this would reverse trends at our School,\u201d Musa wrote. \u201cUnfortunately, this did not happen.\u201d
\nThe archdiocese has previously blamed declining enrollment on the loss of the scholarship program for private schools. When the church closed two grade schools in suburban Berwyn and Cicero in 2024, leaders credited the state\u2019s Invest in Kids state scholarship program with covering tuition for more than half of the schools\u2019 students.<\/p>\n
Leona Hunter took to Facebook to mourn the expected closing of St. Jerome, where she said she taught the fourth grade in the 1970s.
\n\u201cMy thoughts, love and prayers are with all of you at this difficult time,\u201d she wrote. \u201cMost of the schools I have taught in during my 40 years as an educator have closed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closure of these six Catholic grade schools marks a significant change in the educational landscape of the Chicago area. As the Archdiocese of Chicago continues to navigate declining enrollment and financial challenges, it remains to be seen how these closures will impact the communities affected.<\/p>\n
Introduction to School Closures The Archdiocese of Chicago plans to close six Catholic grade schools this year, citing declining enrollment and ongoing financial losses. Affected Schools Four of the schools are in Chicago: St. Bruno and St. Richard, 5025 S. Kenneth Ave. in Archer Heights St. Jerome, 2801 S. Princeton Ave. in Armour Square St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/a93948d\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3000x1713+0+144\/resize\/1461x834!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fde%2F72%2F6a7d749349ae97f0abc64db0c7de%2Farchdiocese-2601257-5.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36293,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36291\/revisions\/36293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}