Parents Meeting Friday Night to Discuss St. Patrick Merger

Saint Monica Parish School in Berwyn will close at the end of the current school year and merge with for the 2012-13 academic year, school officials confirmed Friday.

Administrators and parents of St. Patrick students will meet to discuss the news and its implications Friday night at 7 p.m. in the parish church adjacent to the school.

Saint Patrick principal Patricia O'Donnell called the merger a mixed bag.

"I think that it’s going to provide a good opportunity to sustain Catholic education here in this area of Chester County," O'Donnell said. "There will definitely be growing pains, and pain and sadness involved, but I do think it can be a very exciting and life-giving time also."

These changes are part of a larger plan to close or consolidate schools in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The full list of school closures was announced in a press conference Friday at 4 p.m.

According to O'Donnell, the school can handle the added enrollment; St. Patrick has a current enrollment of 270, but at one point had 525 students. But the change will likely necessitate reductions in faculty, and the name of the school could also change.

On Friday afternoon, Tredyffrin-Easttown Patch published the sent to St. Monica parents from the pastor, Father Trader. An excerpt:

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput has decided to accept the recommendation of the Blue Ribbon Commission and as a result, Saint Monica's School will be closed at the end of this school year.  Saint Patrick's School in Malvern will also close and we will form a new regional school at the Malvern campus. [...]

There are many questions about the specifics of how this will work for which I do not yet have answers.  Mrs. Hoban and I need to attend another meeting on Tuesday, January 10 where the Archdiocese will share more details on how this consolidation will take place and how it will impact our students, families, faculty, and administration.

According to principal O'Donnell, many students discovered the news on their own by the end of the school day.

"They found it on their iTouches, iPhones, those kinds of things. We did have a meeting with faculty, and there was sadness and concern about jobs," O'Donnell said. "Overall, there was a positive feeling of, we’re going to move forward and improve upon the great program we already have."