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Another Catholic school closing: Mount Alvernia High School to shut doors in June
By adamg on Thu, 03/09/2023 - 9:12am
Mount Alvernia High School in Newton, which opened in 1935, yesterday announced its closure at the end of the current school year.
The news comes a month after Saint Joseph Prep Boston in Brighton announced it was closing at the end of the school year.
In a letter to the school community yesterday, Mount Alvernia officials say the shutdown is tied to the decision by the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception to stop living at the Centre Street campus they have long shared with the school:
As they move, it will be unsustainable for MAHS to continue alone, and the property on which the school sits will be sold. The MAHS Board of Directors worked tirelessly to explore all options, including maintaining the MAHS community in a new location, if at all possible
The school says students "in good standing" can transfer to Fontbonne Academy in Milton, with which Mount Alvernia is affiliated.
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Comments
Big campus
They own, as far as I can tell, five contiguous parcels, for a total of almost 66 acres, assessed at a total of more than 40 million dollars. It's not often you see prime developable land in that amount come onto the market. The Sisters can retire somewhere nice, if they want to, and it will be interesting to see what becomes of the land. I don't think any other private schools will be buying it - this is a hard time for private schools lately, what with the increased costs during the pandemic, and several others are on the verge of collapse - but maybe Newton can get a place for a new elementary school out of the deal.
And maybe some more of that affordable housing it needs. Northland North, anybody?
On struggling private schools
Good. And good riddance to any that go under. Private education is a feudal holdover and exists to maintain the class divide.We really should be talking about abolishing them.
It is not 66 acres. It 22+.
It is not 66 acres. It 22+. Get your facts straight.
"will be sold"
The property owned by the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception is approximately 23 acres. At $4 million per acre (going price for housing in Newton) it's worth $100 million. No wonder they want to move!
So many thoughts here:
1) The Catholic Church has sat on this land for decades as its appreciated, yet paid no taxes. If they sell it, they really ought to pay back taxes on the property (they won't) or at least provide the City with something in lieu of taxes.
2) What an opportunity for housing in the City of Newton … now let's see how they manage to screw it up. About half the property is wooded (and has been for decades, if not centuries) and the "headwaters" of Edmands Brook (which then runs in a pipe under the BC campus over to Edmands Park). This area is currently surrounded by a decrepit chain link fence with barb wire on top of it. Lord knows why.
So assume you keep the 10 acres which are currently wooded as public conservation land. That leaves 10 acres which could be developed. Now it's Newton, so of course the zoning is SR2, although to be fair Newton is rezoning and eliminating a bunch of 1950s-era lot size minimums. Still, 10 acres would yield 40 to 60 single family homes, meanwhile Somerville is building 288 units on 2.8 acres (with about half being affordable) and while 1000 units here might be a lot, it would be nice to see Newton step up and add an appreciable amount of housing. (It is too bad this is close to a mile from the nearest T stop or high frequency buses in Newton Corner, but still.)
It will be interesting to watch the pearl clutching which would happen if you proposed 500 units of mostly-affordable housing on this site!
Undercounted
They own five contiguous parcels, three times as much land as you think.
https://newtonma.mapgeo.io/datasets/properties?abuttersDistance=100&latl...
Put "Franciscan" in the search box and see what it gives you.
Not sure about that …
The consecutive parcels, roughly from south to north, are:
3.91 acres, 4.72 ac, 11.45 ac, 1.22 ac, 1.51 ac.
Total of ~23 acres.
You're right
I went back and added it up again. 23 acres, like you said. I must have fat-fingered a number.
BC
Will take ownership of the property and you'll cry a river..
You may be right
Todays' Boston Glob story has this nugget:
Joyce said another Catholic organization that the sisters did not identify is poised to buy the property.
How many other "Catholic organizations" do you know that have 40-100M laying around?
The Catholic Church does NOT
The Catholic Church does NOT own the land nor the school. The Sisters fully own and control this sale and they alone fully profit from this decision.
I can't think of a better place for transit oriented
Across Centre St from BC, with several stops on the 52 bus.
I can't think of a better place for transit oriented, low income housing.
I mean, who would oppose that? Right!
Have you ever ridden the 52
Have you ever ridden the 52 bus? Or even looked at the schedule? An apartment complex next to one of its stops would not be transit-oriented anything.
Catholic schools are dropping
Catholic schools are dropping like flies because of Charter schools. This is not a complaint, it is a reality. The only thing that kept Catholic schools alive past the 70s was they were school choice before school choice was a thing. It was a way for middle income parents in good areas to send their kids if they wanted a more controlled environment. It was also a way for some middle to low income families in rougher areas to send their kids to someplace they deemed safer and better for development. Since then public schools in many areas have rebuilt and brought in tremendous resources. We also have charter schools as an option for parents to send their kids to as well. The controversies with the Catholic Church caused many to begin to pull away more in the 90's and 2000's which was great for the schools that knew how to handle the new world but a death null for those that maybe did not have that experience
I went to Catholic school as a kid. We were definitely Catholic but not front pew people. I went to school with Jewish kids, Muslim kids and all sorts of other Christians. I would say only a handful of the kids in my classes were from hardcore Catholic families. Most of us that were there would most likely have gone to charters or one of the better equipped public schools we now have if those were options. Most of our parents did not have the extra money to toss around just so we could be educated in a Catholic manner. In fact I was in school during that period where old school nuns were being phased out of the classrooms because parents did not appreciate their techniques. In many cases the schools did a better job of separating religion from education than the public schools nearby. With the obvious exception of the four times a week religion classes but even those by the time I entered high school focused on world religions, ethics , morality and pulled away from a Catholic centric approach which is crazy in some ways when you consider it was a Catholic school.
Not just charter schools
Massachusetts has the best public schools in the country. Now it is true that quality varies by locality, but if you lived in Newton or surrounding areas a private school would be a hard sell. Meanwhile, they can't just shove conscripted low-status clergy into the front of the classrooms - they have to pay teachers who are versed in the subject matter, and many in teaching won't take the poverty-level wages on offer anymore.
Many are going under simply because they cannot offer what public schools do. Even though it was unfairly and abruptly implemented, MCAS and curriculum frameworks have succeeded at the low and middle ends of the spectrum. Standards have been raised and the stigma is abating with each generation.
Lol
You're at your best when you have no idea what you're talking about, Swirly.
The ratio of private to public schools in Newton (61 to 9) is about the same as in Boston (191 to 27). It's very different from how it is up in your little suburb (Medford, 18 to 9).
Private schools in Newton are not a hard sell. Do some middle-class people move to Newton from Boston, and pull their kids out of private school? Yes. But they're balanced out by the rich people who were already there and never considered sending their kids to public school, and the parents farther out (Wellesley, Dover) or farther in (Brookline, Boston) who send their kids to private schools in Newton.
https://www.greatschools.org/massachusetts/newton/
The main reason local private schools are under financial stress now is that, unlike the local public schools, they couldn't get away with just giving up on providing education for the duration of the pandemic, and that was expensive. No private school is going under because "they can't offer what public schools do." That's hilarious. Most private schools in the area have more applicants than they can admit, many of them refugees from local public schools.
Catholic schools are under special stress, and it's not because parents don't want to send their kids there, or because they don't offer an education as good as public schools. There are many reasons: aging and expensive facilities; the dwindling numbers of nuns; the removal of protestant religious education from public schools; the rise of charter schools; and the movement of Catholic populations away from their historic neighborhoods. But lousy outcomes aren't among the reasons; 100% of Mount Alvernia graduates go to college.
Mount Alvernia, in specific, is closing because the few remaining Sisters don't want to be there anymore. Some of the girls will go down to Fontbonne, and the rest will likely go across the street to Newton Country Day. I doubt many of them will end up in public school next year.
LOLgical Fallacy
# of schools is not the same as capacity.
Miss Twinkletoe's College Prep Academy for Toddlers has five kids, but you count the same as Newton North.
Where did you learn math?
In non-wealthy towns people are leaving the Catholic schools in droves because they aren't keeping up.
Lying with Numbers
Or maybe just failing to understand the most basic concepts of numerators, denominators and statistics is a matter of faith?
Our local parochial schools have trouble keeping kids past about fifth grade. One of the local charters is likely to lose its charter on renewal because it refuses to accept the terms and conditions under which it is funded. Working-class and middle-class people are onto the false promise of a "better" education because uniforms make things elite or something.
Where's the lie?
This is just you, again, looking around at your neighborhood and insisting the rest of the world is the same. Nope, sorry. The problems of your local Medford parochial and charter schools aren't very relevant to folks and schools in Boston and Newton. Your chronic myopia defines you, but not the rest of us.
If you can't talk about the subject at hand, because you don't know anything about it, then just butt out instead of making stuff up.
I know, in our dreams.
Why are you knocking uniforms?
A uniform makes for easier “what to wear to school today” decisions when the clock is ticking early in the morning.
A uniform is uniform. NOTHING to do with elitism. In fact, for some families keeping your children in clothes of the right size and type of what your children’s peers are wearing can be financially challenging. NOTHIN to do with elitism.
Very happy with parochial school. International, warm and caring, disciplined, striving for academic performance. Our parochial school is 60% secular, non-Catholic.
NOTHING to do with elitism.
- a parent.
How do you explain then that
How do you explain then that Catholic schools had a very strong foothold in areas that now seem to really want Charter schools? I look at places like Dorchester where people like Andrea Campbell supported Charters. I look around and see Charters seem most popular in low income areas.
In regards to this particular school in this story, the other person commenting makes a good point. These kids are Newton area kids, we all know the resources Newton puts in their schools. The parents will just move them into another private school.
Schools are better then they were in the 80s but in those urban school districts you still have lots of parents looking for other options. Catholic schools were very popular among those who are in the second generation where parents can cobble together enough wealth to send them to school with loans but not enough to move out of that community. Charter schools with their requirements and paperwork now fill that void for those families. Wealthy families granted do not care as much about money, they will just find a place for their kids to go.
lol but for different reasons
There are certainly a number of people Newton who wouldn't think of their precious children slumming it in public school. North and South are for the huddled masses who can only barely afford a $1.5 million 3br home or worse (shiver) live in a two-family or something similarly plebian. Their parents are probably in lowly professions like college professors or family care physicians. They wouldn't want their children of hedge fund managers to mix with that kind of riffraff.
Schools in general are
Schools in general are struggling - Millennials were the largest generation since the boomers, and Gen Z is smaller. Alpha - the Millennials kids - is even smaller, because generally it's too expensive to have kids.
Enrollment is down across most school types, except the public charters, because they're going to skim off most motivated 400 kids or whatever of the available public pool, whether that 400 is 1% of the school population or 10%.
Tuition at
Mt Alvernia is 20K. Not all families will be able to make the shift to a more expensive private school (Newton Country Day is 62K and the Winsor School is 56K). So it stands to reason that some students will move to public school depending on where they live.
Yea I was gonna say…
Mt. Alvernia (and Mt. St Joseph) were your traditional “middle class” Catholic schools that would give out aid for may Allston/Brighton residents. Newton Country Day is another category.