Part of the St. Francis campus as seen on Jan. 10. Photo: Anna Weaver | HCH
All grades at Saint Francis School will close at the end of this academic year, the religious order that sponsors the Manoa pre-K to 12 Catholic school announced on Feb. 14.
Saint Francis students received the news at an assembly at the end of the school day, which was also live streamed to the school’s website.
“Simply put there is not enough money to continue,” said Sister Barbara Jean Donovan, general minister for the Syracuse-based Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities that founded Saint Francis School, in a separate video message shared online.
Initially, the Saint Francis board of directors made a Jan. 7 announcement that grades 7-12 would close after this school year. But the board also said the remaining grades could close if enrollment and finance goals (about $4-5 million) weren’t met. March 31 was the deadline to announce the future of the lower grades.
Low turnout at a Feb. 9 open house for prospective preschool through sixth graders, plus small re-enrollment numbers so far, led Saint Francis to make the decision for total school closure earlier.
After the upper school closure announcement “I think parents were just nervous about what was going to happen” with the rest of the school, said Sister Barbara Jean in a phone call Feb. 15.
Her Feb. 14 video message emphasized that with “the enrollment received so far it’s apparent the elementary school cannot be viable next year. And we believe it’s important to make this announcement early so that families have the opportunity to plan for the future.”
The Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities had been subsidizing the school for the last several years, she added, but the order could no longer afford to do so.
Sister Barbara Jean said the $18,000 actual cost of educating a Saint Francis student was substantially higher than the school’s tuition rates ($9-13,000). Sixty percent of the school’s student body also receive some form of tuition assistance, adding to the school’s financial issues.
“This is very sad for all of us and has been the most heart-wrenching weeks and months of planning for all of us,” Sister Barbara Jean said in her video message. “It’s very difficult to hear that the board of directors worked very hard and was not able to, after exploring all options, prevent the closure of the school.”
Keeping things positive
The shutdown news didn’t seem to be a huge shock to most of the student body, said head of school Casey Asato when reached by phone on Feb. 15. He said students were going about like it was a normal school day. He and Sister Barbara Jean Donovan planned to informally tour the school that day and speak with students and teachers.
Asato, who took over school leadership in August, says a major concern for him will be keeping up school morale for the rest of the year. He’ll be looking for student feedback on fun activities the campus can do together like an ice cream social or sporting event.
“While the decisions are made at a high level, it’s the students that have been affected,” Asato said. “I want to find out ways that they want to celebrate the school as we wind down the next few months to graduation.”
He is also working to help faculty and staff find new jobs for the next school year.
“As the head, my desire is that every single one of the faculty and staff finds a soft landing spot,” he said.
Sister Barbara Jean praised Saint Francis for its longstanding “family spirit”
“The legacy of Saint Francis School will not die in July of 2019. It will live on in all those who have passed through its doors,” Sister Barbara Jean said, adding that the school will hold a spring event to honor the school’s history.
She added that the Sisters of St. Francis will help fund the rest of the school year and the costs of the school closure so that Saint Francis will shut down without debt.
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. It graduated its first co-ed high school class in 2013.
The school currently has 452 students enrolled, with 49 in preschool, 89 in K-5, 90 in 6-8 and 224 in 9-12.
High school graduation is May 25, and the preschool continues its summer session until July 12.
This story was updated on Feb. 15, 2019.
