BY LINDA DeNICOLA and CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writers

CHRISTINEVARNO Holy Trinity School in Long Branch is one of two local Catholic schools that may close due to declining enrollment. Two Catholic schools in the area may be closed due to shrinking enrollment if the Diocese of Trenton follows the recommendations of a panel set up to study issues that affect Catholic education in the county.

The two schools targeted for closing in a Diocesan study, The Strategic Plan for Catholic Schools, are Holy Trinity in Long Branch and St. Mary of the Assumption in Ocean Township.

The Monmouth County Task Force of the Diocesan Education Advisory Council has recommended that Holy Trinity School on Exchange Place in Long Branch be closed due to insufficient enrollment. The school, which houses pre-K through eighth grade, has been open since 1961 and currently has an enrollment of 107 students.

“We are a small school and very family-oriented,” Principal Sister RoseAnn Fernandez said on Friday.

The school closure recommendation is currently undergoing a period of consultation and evaluation and will be forwarded to Bishop John Smith in mid-January for his final decision, according to a press release from the Diocese of Trenton.

Fernandez said she is just waiting now for Smith’s decision and hoping for divine intervention.

“There are always miracles. I love this school and I do not want anything to happen to it,” she said.

Fernandez said the school sent letters to the parents of the children in the school last week to inform them of the recommendation that Holy Trinity be closed.

Currently tuition at the school is $3,000 for one child, $4,500 for two children and $6,000 for families with three or more children in the school.

Holy Trinity is the only Catholic school in Long Branch, and if Smith decides in the winter to accept the recommendations, Fernandez said students would have to be transferred to nearby Catholic schools in surrounding towns if parents want them to remain in a Catholic school. The study also recommends looking into the feasibility of busing to Asbury Park.

The study recommends that St. Jerome in West Long Branch and Holy Trinity parishes make a long-term agreement for St. Jerome School to use the gym at Holy Trinity for athletic events. At some point in the future, capital should be raised to construct a gym at St. Jerome School, as well as additional educational space.

St. Mary of the Assumption School is also under-enrolled. The K-8 school had an enrollment of 163 in 2004-05 and 139 in 2005-06. According to the study, the school is operating at 55 percent of capacity, leaving 115 empty seats. While there is typically a full class of kindergarten students, an average of five to seven students leave between kindergarten and first grade.

The cost per pupil, $5,212, is the highest of the schools in Monmouth County, but the school has a low pupil-teacher ratio of 12.3-to-1.

The study notes also that parish collections went down each year between 2000-2003, and collections in 2003-04 were down 16.5 percent from 2000-01.

In 2004, the parish had a deficit of $49,500 and in essence was not able to meet its obligations for school subsidy or other expenses.

“St. Mary’s Parish is not viable enough to support a Catholic school,” the report states. “The parish has fewer households and the demographic trends suggest further decline. Only 14 children were baptized in 2003, and 187 were enrolled in the religious education program.”

Another expense facing the school will be the need for a new roof in the near future, and cash reserves are not available to pay for major capital repairs.

Three Catholic elementary schools in the area have strong enrollments: Holy Cross, Rumson, 93 percent; St. James, Red Bank, 98 percent; and St. Jerome, 89 percent. In addition, the study indicates that enrollment is at capacity at Red Bank Catholic High School.

In fact, the task force found that Catholic high school enrollment is up 11 percent, and most of the increase comes from Red Bank Catholic, the largest Catholic high school in the county.

The Diocese of Trenton, the 20th largest diocese in the country, released the draft Strategic Plan for Catholic Schools in Monmouth County on Nov. 15. It was prepared by a Monmouth County Task Force and Meitler Consultants Inc.

The panel found that in the 2005-06 school year, enrollment at the 47 Catholic elementary schools and 11 Catholic high schools was 24,736.

Pre-K to grade 8 enrollment in Monmouth County was 7,195 at the start of the 2005-06 school year, the lowest level in 24 years and, like the rest of the diocese, has had its most serious declines in the last three years.

According to the study, it was established in 2004 that a strategic plan was needed for Catholic schools. The plan needed to address fundamental reasons for enrollment decline, take a long-range view of the viability of Catholic education, ensure the mission of Catholic schools would be carried out with the best stewardship possible, and coordinate pastoral planning for parishes with planning for schools.

The Strategic Plan found that community demographic trends project that the total population in Monmouth County is increasing, but all the growth is among ages 15 to 29 and over 50.

Over the decade of 2005-2015, the county population is projected to grow by 5 percent, about half the growth rate of the 1990s. The largest population growth will occur in Freehold, Manalapan, Howell and Neptune townships, and Tinton Falls Borough.

The study holds that the health of Catholic schools is related to the health of the parishes that support them. Using an average of 2.69 people per household, Monmouth County may have 252,000 Catholics, which represents 39.4 percent of the overall population.

The average cost per pupil in Monmouth County Catholic elementary schools was $4,045 in 2003-04, an 8 percent increase over the previous year. Average tuition increased 10.6 percent for the same period. The cost of Catholic schools continues to rise faster than the overall rate of inflation or the rate of growth in personal income.

For 2003-04 Catholic schools in the county reported 76 percent of their income from tuition and fees, 12 percent from parish subsidy and 12 percent from fundraising and donations. At this time, five schools are in critical financial condition. They include Holy Trinity and St. Mary of the Assumption.

The study also states that the declining number of priests has had ramifications on parishes and parish schools.

“Parishes cannot be staffed as they once were. Many more demands are made on their time and energy than in the past. Fewer men are available to be assigned to parishes with schools, and fewer men are available with the gifts, vision, desire or training needed by a pastor of a school parish,” the Strategic Plan study states.

The study also acknowledges that there is more competition for students. Catholic schools must compete for students on many more levels, including academics, technology, athletics, extracurricular programs.

Trends in education are also costly. Excellence is constantly being redefined by technology, new teaching methods, new standards for achievement, new additions to curriculum that require training and resources that must be funded, the study noted. In addition, small schools have limitations as to the programs they can provide for middle school-age students and more students are being diagnosed with learning needs, which means that schools need staff trained to assist them.

In its vision statement, the task force listed a number of goals: Catholic schools should be distinctly Catholic; Catholic schools should be truly excellent and Catholic schools should be fiscally sound.

According to the study, some of the trends are discouraging while others present opportunities to effectively carry forth the mission of Catholic education.