Randall Yee, Saint Francis board of directors chair, speaks with Saint Francis alumni at a Jan. 10 meeting to discuss the middle and high school’s closure at the end of the school year. Photo: Anna Weaver | HCH
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Alumni of Saint Francis School in Manoa gathered Jan. 10 at the school to discuss the impending closure of the institution’s middle and high school and potential whole school closure. Despite the negative topic, the meeting’s momentum was positive.
Many of the alumni wanted to know how they could save the school. How much money was needed? Where could they donate? They weren’t giving up on their 94-year-old alma mater.
“We are a larger board,” said one alumna of her fellow Saint Francis graduates. “We can keep the school open!”
The board announced on Jan. 7 its decision to close grades 7-12 after this school year.
Several graduates said they had no idea the school was in this dire of a situation and would have tried to help sooner if they’d known.
When asked if the alumni and others could raise enough money to keep the school open, whether the Saint Francis’ board would do it, chair Randall Yee responded “most likely yes.” Yee fielded most of the questions from the 50 or so alumni that turned out for the meeting, though head of school Casey Asato and other board members also chimed in.
“None of the board wants to see Saint Francis close,” he said. But he pointed out that the high costs of running upper grades compared to lower grades and not meeting enrollment quotas had led to the decision to close the middle and high schools.
“We understand the shock and the disappointment by many of the parents and the students,” Yee told the Herald prior to the meeting, saying the decision to close the school was “purely economic.”
Part of the Saint Francis campus as seen on Jan. 10. Photo: Anna Weaver | HCH
Saint Francis School has one of the lowest private high school tuitions in the state and also had 60 percent of its student body on some form of scholarship. That led to not enough tuition income, Yee said. The Sisters of Saint Francis of the Neumann Communities, which founded the school and filled many of its teaching and leadership positions over the years, can no longer financially support Saint Francis, he said.
Yee emphasized that the pre-K to 6 remaining open is not guaranteed. Re-enrollment starts in mid-January and the school needs to meet an enrollment quota to stay open. The school is seeking donations, re-enrollment commitments and new students for grades pre-K to 6.
“If enrollment targets are not met and we are forced to permanently cease operations for all grade levels, an announcement will be made by March 31, 2019,” Yee wrote in the Jan. 7 closure letter. “We are working to avoid this if at all possible.”
Saint Francis would need a significant influx of donations to keep the entire pre-K to 12 grades operating both in the short-term and the long-term. Yee estimated off the top of his head at the gathering that at least $2 million would be needed for the school’s immediate needs and close to $1 million each year after that.
Yee said the board’s long-term goal had been to gradually build up the school’s endowment, but it is currently at just $168,000.
Saint Francis had held question and answer sessions on Jan. 8 for school students and Jan. 9 for parents. This third session for alumni on Jan. 10 had perhaps the most emotionally invested group in attendance, graduates who don’t want to see their Manoa alma mater shut down.
Saint Francis alumni association president Rita Chun had been taken by surprise by the school closure news.
Chun worries about the current high schoolers who will have to switch schools. Her oldest son went through a similar experience, having to transfer from Star of the Sea High School to Damien Memorial School after Star of the Sea closed. “They lose that essence of that continuity,” said the 1965 Saint Francis graduate.
Saint Francis alumni gather for a Jan. 10 meeting with school officials to discuss the middle and high school’s closure at the end of the school year. Photo: Anna Weaver | HCH
Many alumni at the meeting asked how they can donate to save the school. One 1973 alumna, Valerie Balthazar Santiago, who works at the Sisters of Saint Francis of the Neumann Communities convent, said she’d been getting many calls since the closure announcement from people asking how they can help.
There is a link on Saint Francis’ website to its PayPal account, under the Support, Donate Now section.
Founded by the Franciscan Sisters as an all-girls school in 1924, Saint Francis officially started accepting boys in 2006 in order to make the school more competitive among Oahu’s private schools. (One boy graduated in 2002 after transferring from the closing, co-ed satellite Saint Francis campus on Kauai.) It graduated its first co-ed high school class in 2013.
Sister William Marie Eleniki, regional minister of the Sisters of Saint Francis and a 1962 Saint Francis graduate herself, said that she and her fellow sisters “all feel bad about the closure.”
She said that whatever is done with the school, “the power of prayer is so important.”
“Saint Francis needs their support and prayers so we can do the best moving forward.”
School Info Session
Saint Francis School is holding a school fair on Jan. 19 from 9-11 a.m. in the school gym to help students needing to transfer to a new school. Representatives from 21 schools, including several Catholic middle and high schools, plan to be there.
Saint Francis head of school Casey Asato noted at the Jan. 10 alumni meeting that several schools have pledged to match St. Francis’ tuition, are offering discounted tuition, or have offered application fee and SSAT waivers for Saint Francis students transferring to their institution.
