Students, Parents Rally against Catholic School Closings

NBC 10
January 9, 2012

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Students-Parents-Rally-to-Keep-Catholic-Schools-Open-136914678.html

[with video]

Students at St. Hubert's School in Mayfair are planning a rally Monday morning. On Friday, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that it will be closing four of its high schools and 44 of its elementary schools at the end of the school year in June. St. Hubert's is one of the schools set to close.

Monday's rally is being organized by students though teachers have also been invited to participate. It begins at 6:30 a.m. and is set to run until 7:30 a.m. just before classes begin.

A rally was also held outside of Conshohocken Catholic School on Sunday.

The Archdiocese says declining enrollment and no property values of the schools factored in the closings

"It's just an unfortunate thing for the whole neighborhood and the whole community. As a parent of young children who go to the school I was baptized here, I went to school here got married here my children are in elementary they were baptized here," Margie DelGiorno said.

Parents outside the Ephiphany of Our Lord Mass in South Philadelphia say they don't buy the reasons for the closings. They say their school may be more viable than the alternative.

"We have a computer lab, art program, sports program – all that is gone. The other school doesn't even have a gym so we cannot understand any of this," Cindy Pierandazzi told NBCPhiladelphia's Cydney Long.

Some parents blame the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal for their children's education being jeopardized.

"Because of all the money that got wasted on the lawsuits, there education is in jeopardy," said Donald Buccieri, a parent of a Catholic School student. "Now we're forced to send them to schools that we don't want to send them to."