ST. LOUIS — Amid ongoing feedback sessions on its new consolidation plan, the Archdiocese of St. Louis announced Tuesday it would be postponing restructuring of its Catholic elementary schools until the 2024-25 school year.
Launched in January, the “All Things New” consolidation plan works to restructure the Catholic church in a way that's sustainable for generations to come. The plan includes hard changes, such as school closures and parish mergers, as well as welcome changes, such as higher teacher salaries and more affordable tuition.
The revised Archdiocesan school footprint was scheduled to be announced in January 2023 and implemented in the 2023-24 school year, but input from parish communities has caused the archdiocese to delay that timeline.
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"In response to the feedback we have received from school families, pastors, principals, teachers and staff, through surveys, listening sessions and ongoing dialogue, along with the recommendation of the school planning committee, it has been recommended that we adjust our implementation timeline for the parish elementary schools," Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski, archbishop of St. Louis, said in a statement Tuesday.
Rozanski cited principal, teacher and administrative contracts; student enrollment; scholarship opportunities; and parish budgets as factors that made the timeline not feasible.
"In order to best serve the needs of our students and their families, I have decided to postpone implementation of any changes to our parish elementary schools until the 2024-25 school year," Rozanski said.
"The schools primarily are a ministry of those parishes and so that's why we needed to make sure that out of prudence we took more time to gather more feedback and more data to make sure that we do have sustainable and vibrant schools moving forward," added Fr. Chris Martin, vicar for Strategic Planning.
Once the new parish landscape is announced in May 2023, the Archdiocese of St. Louis will work with parish and school communities to "discern what our parish schools should look like" and implement those changes, which could include school closures unrelated to All Things New, in 2024-25.
For more information about the plan, click here. To sign up for one of the listening sessions, click here.
In September, the archdiocese announced it would close St. Mary's and Rosati-Kain high schools at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
Since then, the St. Mary and Rosati-Kain communities have come forward with proposals and fundraising efforts to keep the schools alive.
The "All Things New" consolidation plan that was announced in January is still scheduled to roll out May 2023.