ST. LOUIS — It's the Fourth of July weekend and two St. Louis schools are celebrating their independence on Saturday.
July 1 marks the official transition for Rosati-Kain and St. Mary's High School to become independent schools.
Last year, the Archdiocese of St. Louis announced 2022 would be the last year it would support the all-boys St. Mary’s High and the all-girls Rosati-Kain High.
The closures were a part of the Archdiocese's "All Things New" consolidation plan.
Dwindling enrollment and rising costs were a few reasons behind the decision.
Since then, leaders and alums from both schools hit the ground running to save their schools.
Rosati-Kain Academy
Alums created RK Forever to start fundraising and lead the effort to save the historic school founded in 1911.
It launched a campaign and it raised $1.5 million with access to another $1 million in endowments.
It was able to secure a Catholic juridic sponsorship of St. Joseph Educational Ministries and now, it assumes full leadership of the only independent Catholic all-girl school located in the City of St. Louis.
The school launched a campaign to secure the school’s long-term future with a goal of raising $12.5 million over five years, with $2.5 million designated for an endowment.
This means Rosati-Kain can stay open. With this secured, a new name will take over.
Rosati-Kain will become Rosati-Kain Academy.
"We are a new entity as an independent school so thus we have Rosati-Kain Academy to retain what’s true to us, but to signify that it’s a new chapter. We've got a new name but we still have that unstoppable spirit that we had since 1911," Maggie Sullivan, president of Rosati-Kain Academy, said.
Sullivan called July 1 a significant day.
"This date is our independence day," she said.
She noted that many things will stay the same like the location of the building in Central West End and their educational values. But they plan to add on.
"We have been revising many of our policies, procedures, we are innovating our curriculum," she shared.
To celebrate, staff and alums are putting up signs around the city announcing the new change.
Rosati-Kain Academy will have a picnic at the end of the month with students and families.
St. Mary's South Side High School
At the same time as Rosati-Kain, leaders and alum from St. Mary's also started working to save its 92-year-old school in Dutchtown.
Mike England has been president of St. Mary's for a decade.
"Our goal is raise $12 million over the next five years but in the first four months we raised over five million dollars," England said.
St. Mary’s will become a Marianist-sponsored school, independent of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. It fought to stay open.
Now, it'll change its name from St. Mary's to the St. Mary's South Side High School.
"We were asked to change the names, so it’s different from the original entities. Back in 1931, it was known as South Side Catholic High School and in 1947 it changed to St. Mary’s High School. But we’ve always held on to our South Side High School roots," England said.
England said by being their own entity, it will give them freedom to try new things.
"One of the things we are excited about is our new pre-apprenticeship program that we're adding to our curriculum and adding this year," he said.
England is excited about this momentum and can see it in the numbers.
This year, the school will see the biggest freshman class with 74 students, which is a 15% increase.
"The mission of St. Mary's High School is to give quality Catholic education to all young men, especially those you can't afford it. The median income is $26,000 in this area, we need to be here and we need to be a source of hope," England said. "We need to be a source that will help address poverty, lack of opportunity and lack of education that unfortunately exists in areas of St. Louis."
St. Mary's South Side is having a big block party on campus on July 1st to celebrate.
