A sign outside Our Lady of Perpetual Help School congratulates newly ordained Deacon Ese’ese Tui, who belongs to the parish. (HCH file photo | Anna Weaver)
St. John the Baptist School has been open for 60 years, Our Lady of Perpetual Help for 53 years
By Anna Weaver and Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Two Oahu Catholic parish schools will close permanently on June 30.
St. John the Baptist School in Kalihi-uka has been open 60 years. Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Ewa Beach, opened 53 years ago.
Both schools said that COVID-19 worsened existing enrollment issues and forced the schools’ closures. They join the 100-150 Catholic schools nationwide projected by the National Catholic Educational Association to shut their doors this year as a result of conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help
In a letter to parents dated June 18, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish’s pastor, Father Ed Barut, and Sister of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities Davilyn Ah Chick, principal, announced the K-8 Ewa Beach school’s closure by the end of the month.
“After 53 years of the best quality Catholic education in serving the community of Ewa Beach and the surrounding Leeward areas, the coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented unemployment figures have created a wait and see atmosphere hindering our families from making enrollment commitments,” the letter read.
“With two months away from the start of the 2020-2021 school year, the current enrollment figures are not promising,” the letter said. “Our school’s operating budget is contingent on enrollment numbers and cannot operate without the adequate financial resources.”
The letter said that “countless meetings were held to come up with ways” to keep the school open, but that “after prayerful discernment and due to COVID-19-related uncertainty,” the school’s board of directors decided to close Our Lady of Perpetual Help on June 30.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish had not been able to subsidize its school for the last five years, according to Sister Ah Chick. But donors and an annual giveaway and fair had helped make ends meet.
The school also was recently reaccredited for six years by the WCEA/WASC, had no loans, no deficit, a savings account of more than $214,000, and had $166,000 available for financial aid.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help School blue ribbon awardees. (HCH file photo)
However, the closure decision came down to enrollment numbers, and many families hadn’t been able to commit to the next school year because of COVID-19 and their own unemployment or financial issues.
Tuition for the 2019-2020 school year was $6,600 for parishioners and $6,800 for non-parishioners, which is on the lower end of the tuition range for Hawaii private elementary schools.
Sister Ah Chick has led the school since 2002. A 2007 Honolulu Advertiser article marking the school’s 40th anniversary said that enrollment had increased and a $243,000 school deficit cleared since Sister Ah Chick took the helm. Back in 2007, there were 226 students, but for the 2019-2020 academic year, the student body total was 150.
Most of the students live in Ewa Beach and the surrounding area.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help has arranged with the closest neighboring Catholic school, St. Joseph in Waipahu, to admit their students. St. Joseph is about 7 miles away.
The school is Ewa Beach’s oldest private school and actually predates the parish church. That’s because the land the parish selected was federally owned and could only be used for “education, health or welfare purposes” for 20 years, according to a history on the parish’s website. Eventually the parish was able to buy the land and add on a church.
The first school building was completed in August 1967 and Our Lady of Perpetual Help started with grades 1-4, adding on from there. The Marist Sisters were the first to staff it, followed by the Augustinian Sisters and the Franciscan Sisters.
“I thank Sister Davilyn, our principal, for serving OLPH School as a principal for 18 solid years, including all her benefactors and friends, our parishioners and the parents of our students for their support,” said Father Barut in a June 22 email to the Herald.
“I just would like to remember our founding fathers, the faculty, staff and personnel who served the school in the past and in the present, the alumni, those who served in the PTSA and our School Board, and again, our parishioners.”
St. John the Baptist
St. John the Baptist Parish administrator Father Diego Alejandro Restrepo told his parish community the sad news of its school’s closing in a letter dated June 8.
“This has been a most difficult decision, reached after extensive consideration and a heavy heart,” he said.
It is a familiar story — enrollment drops and expenses rise to a point where running a school is no longer financially viable — in the unfamiliar backdrop of a global pandemic.
The economics of running a parish school are even more difficult in working-class districts like Kalihi. It was only two years ago that St. Anthony School, about a mile way in Kalihi-kai, shut its doors. That school was 90-years-old.
St. John the Baptist students sort food baskets for the kupuna in need. (HCH file photo | Anna Weaver)
“We were trying to remain open,” Father Restrepo told the Hawaii Catholic Herald by phone last week, by considering a variety of scenarios that included combining grade levels and cutting the faculty from 11 teachers to five.
But the quality of education would have suffered, he said.
“Last year we had 107 students,” he said.
This year, knowing the financial struggles the community is facing, “we planned a budget for 65 students,” he said. Still, the school was not able to reach that goal.
“This year we had 49 families say ‘yes,’” he said, amounting to about 55 students.
“The people know it is a big loss,” he said. “We know the importance of a Catholic education.”
Many in the community have lost incomes due to the coronavirus shutdown, he said, but the school, which is running a $100,000 deficit, cannot wait for economic conditions, uncertain as they are, to improve.
In his letter, Father Restrepo said that his parish and school had been “in consultation” with the Hawaii Catholic Schools office, and the diocesan finance and human resources offices “for some time.”
He also sought the advice and consent of his parish finance council, which he received, and finally the approval of Bishop Larry Silva.
A sign donated by the St. John the Baptist School Class of 2020 sits at the entrance to the parish church (at right) and school (off camera to left). HCH Photo: Anna Weaver
The bishop’s go-ahead came “after closely analyzing all factors, prayerful consideration, and keeping in mind the well-being of our students, their families, and the school staff,” he said.
The school, parish and diocese have been trying to address the school’s economic challenges for several years he said. The parish had been subsidizing the school $23,000 a year.
Then came COVID-19, which exacerbated the pre-existing conditions of a shrinking enrollment and an expanding deficit.
“I pray for all our students and their families to find another school to enrich their faith and learning experiences, and that our school staff may find just work somewhere else,” Father Restrepo wrote in his letter’s conclusion.
“I thank God for making St. John the Baptist School a special place to perpetuate the Catholic faith by living as Christ lives, teaching as Christ teaches, and loving as Christ loves for the past 60 years,” he said.
There has already been some discussion about what to do with the empty school facilities. A preschool is a possibility.
“I think it is a good option,” Father Restrepo said.
