Holy Trinity parents seek angels’ help

BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

CHRISTINEVARNO Holy Trinity School in Long Branch is one of two local Catholic schools that may close due to declining enrollment. The PTA at Holy Trinity School in Long Branch is doing all it can to save the school from being closed, including reaching out to the Vatican and to Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network.

Now the school’s staff is calling on parents for input on how to increase enrollment and funding at the school before it is too late.

Holy Trinity School, Exchange Place, is one of two schools recommended for closure in The Strategic Plan for Catholic Schools released last month by the Monmouth County Task Force of the Diocese of Trenton.

The other school, which the report said should also be closed due to insufficient enrollment, is St. Mary of the Assumption, Ocean Township.

“We want to fight it,” said Mary Jensen, a seventh-grade teacher at the Holy Trinity School for five years, at an emergency PTA meeting held Monday night. “We are very busy here to keep hope alive. We are the only Catholic school in Long Branch. If we close, we all will be losing something.”

Holy Trinity Principal Sister RoseAnn Fernandez said if the school closes, 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 students to Asbury Park.

The recommendations in the diocesan study are 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.

Jensen, along with Donna Urmey, an eighth-grade teacher who has been teaching at Holy Trinity School for 18 years, and Patricia Hendricks, a fifth-grade teacher at the school for four years, asked parents at the meeting for their suggestions on how to save the school.

“It is down to the wire,” Jensen said. “The teachers have been at this for three or four years now. Now we need help.”

The group of concerned parents who gathered in the school library for the meeting suggested writing letters to the bishop expressing the importance of the school, contacting local businesses for assistance and requesting a grace period from the diocese for more time before a final decision is made.

“We need to keep the presentation that they are not just closing doors, but they are putting children out of schools,” Hendricks said. “Is it a business or a commitment to education?”

Jensen prepared a CD slide presentation shown at the meeting that she said was a visual representation of all the things that Holy Trinity School does.

Copies of the CD were sent not only to the Bishop Smith, but also to church hierarchy in Rome. Representatives of the school have also contacted Oprah Winfrey and her Angels Network for help in saving the school.

“The kids do wonderful work here,” Jensen said. “Their test scores are up. We are doing something right.”

But she added Holy Trinity is about $250,000 shy of the funding necessary to run the school.

“This past year, the diocese paid for teachers’ salaries,” Jensen said. “We are trying to come up with solutions for a plan that will work. We are not giving up.”

The pre-K through eighth-grade school has been open since 1961 and currently has an enrollment of 107 students. The 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.

Some parents at the meeting said that Holy Trinity is more than just a school to them, it is an extension of their families.

“If the school closed, it would be like losing a part of my family,” said Diane Bykow, a teacher at the school and parent of a student at the school, at the meeting.

Another parent from Tinton Falls who sends her three children to Holy Trinity agreed.

“I am one of the parents who do not live [in Long Branch],” Helena Brandao said. “When I first came here, I felt like part of a family. It is just a wonderful environment.”

A group of teachers at the school submitted a rebuttal of The Strategic Plan for Catholic Schools to the diocese in November.

Among the 10 points made in the rebuttal, are:

• Although enrollment has declined, the school has maintained its current enrollment for two years;

• Holy Trinity has a very strong multicultural population. “Our students are aware of what it is like to experience other ethnicities. Doesn’t diversity prepare them for what it will be like in the real world?;

• It is stated that Holy Trinity students will be welcomed at St. Jerome’s School in West Long Branch. How is that possible when it is at 99 percent capacity?;

• The Holy Trinity staff recommends that St. Jerome’s and Holy Trinity merge, and use Holy Trinity as the elementary school and St. Jerome’s as the middle school. This would address the overcrowding at St. Jerome’s and would address the waiting list as well.

Study recommendations included sending Holy Trinity students to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Asbury Park, but in the rebuttal, teachers raised concern about safety.

“We have taken a poll of our parents, and they do not want to send their children to Asbury Park,” the rebuttal states. “Have the crime statistics been truly investigated? What happens when there is an evening function? Why is the school gated and locked?”

Jensen said she reached out to St. Mary of the Assumption prior to the meeting to discuss the possibility of merging the two schools in order to keep them open.

“I was told that our students would be welcome to attend [St. Mary of the Assumption], but that their students would not come [to Long Branch],” Jensen said.

The rebuttal also notes the Long Branch public school district has been given one year to improve students’ standardized test scores.

“If they don’t, they may lose Abbott funding and be taken over by the state of New Jersey. This offers potential for increased enrollment [at Holy Trinity] in the future,” according to the rebuttal.

Jensen said the school needs 80 more students to have the funds needed to keep the school open.

“A problem is that people say ‘Holy Trinity? Where is that?’ ” Jensen said. “A lot of people do not know we are here. We need contact.”

Teachers have been speaking at Masses at local churches to raise awareness and attract students to the school, according to Jensen.

Hendricks suggested that the PTA request call for a forum with the diocese to present a plan to save the school.