The student bodies of two Catholic high schools in western Massachusetts will merge at a temporary location while a new regional high school is under construction in Springfield. Enrollment concerns continue to cloud the future of Catholic secondary education in the Springfield region.
The current Holyoke Catholic High School building in Chicopee will become Pope Francis High School and take in students from Cathedral High School next August, while construction of a new $50 million, 500-student school takes place in Springfield.
" We are excited about the potential to bring Pope Francis High School to reality in many, many ways," said Paul Gagliarducci, the project manager for Pope Francis High School, who along with other diocesan education officials, confirmed the updated merger plans at a news conference Tuesday at Holyoke Catholic. Bishop Mitchell Rozanski announced it in a letter last week to parents, faculty and staff.
" We just thought it was in everyone's best interest to bring both schools together," said Gagliarducci.
The diocese had planned to operate the Pope Francis High School at two locations until the new building opened in 2018, but declining enrollment at Cathedral doomed that plan. There are just 25 students in this year’s freshman class. Total enrollment is 166, down from 215 last year.
Cathedral’s enrollment has plummeted since its longtime Springfield campus was destroyed by a tornado in 2011. The future of the 130- year- old school was in doubt until Bishop Rozanski announced the merger of Cathedral and Hoyloke Catholic and plans to build a new high school named for the current pope on the former Cathedral site.
Gagliarducci said that plan has not wavered.
" This building will make a very good temporary site for two years. Nothing, that I can see, is stopping us from moving forward," he said.
He said operating the new high school, temporarily, at the single campus in Chicopee for two years will save money. Since the tornado, Cathedral has been operating out of a former elementary school in Wilbraham at an annual rental cost of $360,000.
The Holyoke Catholic building has a capacity for 400 students, and a current enrollment of 254, according to principal Mary Ann Linnehan, who said this year’s freshman class with 70 students is one the school’s largest in years.
"Parents want consistency and structure for their kids," she said. " I think once we come together as Pope Francis, parents who may not have sent their students ( to Cathedral) during the last few years will come."
Kevin White, the chief advancement officer for the new high school, said an effort is under way to raise a multi-million dollar endowment to help parents who can’t afford tuition enroll their children in the new school.
"Hopefully, now that the questions are being answered and we are moving along it will be easier for people to commit to it," he said. " We have to get beyond the Cathedral-Holyoke Catholic. It is about Catholic secondary education in the diocese and being able to offer it to every child who wants to take advantage of it."
Tuition has not been set yet for the new Pope Francis High School. Cathedral’s tuition this year is $9,300. It is $8,700 at Holyoke Catholic.
