Courtesy of St. Mary's High School
On the day the email went out to St. Mary’s High School parents informing them that the Archdiocese of St. Louis was going to be closing the Catholic school at the end of the academic year, Bob Schillinger had to break the news to his son, Bobby, who is a junior at the all-boys school, after his soccer game.
Schillinger is a 1984 graduate of St. Mary's; his father graduated from the school, located in Dutchtown, in 1952. His son was devastated, he says.
“My son always wanted to go there, and always thought he would graduate from there,” Schillinger says. “His exact words to me were, ‘I should be looking for colleges, not for a high school, when I'm going to be a senior.’”
Students at Rosati-Kain High School, an archdiocesan all-girls school located in the Central West End, received the same news that Tuesday in September. The news of the two schools’ closures, which St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski said is part of the Catholic Church’s “All Things New” plan, has prompted some parents to scramble to find alternatives for their students. But among the school’s leadership and its fierce supporters, it has solidified the belief that the schools need to find alternative ways to operate independently of the Archdiocese.
Six days after the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ announcement that Rosati-Kain would close, for example, about 500 people—both in person and online—gathered to start to make a plan to keep the school open in perpetuity at its current location, 4389 Lindell.
Out of that meeting formed a volunteer group, Rosati-Kain Forever, which has: submitted a proposal to the archbishop to form an independent all-girls Catholic school and ask for his blessing; filed for incorporation under a new name Rosati-Kain Academy; explored sponsorship; created a five-year plan for strategy, finance, and fundraising; and launched a fundraising campaign.
“As soon as we made a post on social media, within two hours we had over 400 comments that I was going through and trying to respond to,” says Lexie Endsley, Rosati’s director of marketing and communications. “I was encouraging people to reach out to me via email. I received thousands of emails.”
Rosati held an open house on October 30 for prospective students, and St. Mary’s open house took place November 6. Time is of the essence: The deadline for students to submit enrollment preference for Catholic high schools is November 15.
Anchor Institutions
Ask St. Mary’s President Michael England about his school, and one of the things he’ll mention is its diversity—he ventures to guess that it’s the most diverse high school in St. Louis. St. Mary’s students are 40 percent African American, 35 percent white, 15 percent Hispanic, and “10 percent everybody else,” England says. There is also economic diversity, geographic diversity, and academic diversity.
“Given all the differences that exist, our young men, truly, are family, truly, are brothers, truly, have each other's backs,” England says.
England says that throughout COVID-19, when families were affected by the pandemic and then inflation, the Archdiocese provided extra financial support to St. Mary’s. “We appreciate all of the help that we have received from the Archdiocese,” he says. Now, though, “the Archdiocese is basically saying to us, ‘We can't afford to give you that money anymore.’ And so now, it's on us to figure out another way of making that work.” (St. Louis Magazine has reached out to the Archdiocese for comment. We will update this story when the Archdiocese responds.)
That’s because, England says, St. Mary’s is not only an important part of the lives of students, it’s also an essential stabilizing force in Dutchtown. For the past nine years, it has enacted a day of service during which students fan out through the neighborhood to pick up trash, cut grass, and pull weeds. Once a month, on Saturdays, the young men do the same thing. The St. Joseph Housing Initiative, which renovates homes in the area and sells them to low- and moderate-income homebuyers, is colocated in the school.
But is the priority to keep the school open because it provides a solid Catholic education or because it’s good for the neighborhood?
“Both are extremely important,” England says. “When we talk about making a quality Catholic education, a highly accredited education, available to those who can't afford it, and if St. Mary's wasn't here, for the majority of our young men, would there be another quality Catholic high school that they could go to? I don't want to know the answer to that question.”
St. Mary’s has always taken seriously its role as a neighborhood anchor, England says, even though he sometimes avoids the phrase “anchor.”
“‘Anchor’ sometimes is synonymous with no movement, and we need to create movement,” he says. “We need to do things that are going to bring about positive change, move the needle, go against the narrative of the city.” England says that for a long time, the narrative has been “city, bad; county, good. City, poor; county, rich. City, dirty; county, clean.” As long as the city is seen in this light, he says the region as a whole can’t change or improve.
“What we've always understood here at St. Mary's is that we want to be an example of what we think St. Louis should aspire to be like,” England says. “We should aspire to be extremely diverse. We should aspire to be a part of bringing about positive change in areas that need positive change. We shouldn't turn our backs on areas that need positive change and say, ‘Well, that's just their fault.’ That's not going to work. We've got to be a part of this idea of always believing in better, and then making better happen. … We need a strong city of St. Louis, and the areas that need investment, need investment. St. Mary's High School is a positive resource in the city of St. Louis. And the city of St. Louis cannot afford to be losing any more positive resources.”
“I Do Not Want to See Another Closed School”
Wikipedia
Rosati-Kain High School
Ellen Kunkelmann is the parent of 8th grade twins who are looking at Rosati-Kain as their high school of choice. Her children were attracted to Rosati’s smaller classroom sizes, diversity, and strong display of Catholic social justice messages. Kunkelmann also liked that, with twins, the cost of Rosati was lower than other Catholic options and offers a substantial multiple child discount. It’s close to her work, too, making dropoff and pickup more convenient. But one of the biggest factors in looking at Rosati, says Kunkelmann, a parent of an LGBTQ student, is that it’s known to be supportive of LGBTQ kids.
Kunkelmann’s children are also looking at city magnet schools, but even if they choose that route, Kunkelmann’s family lives in Dutchtown, and she sees firsthand what the closing of schools can do to neighborhoods. Cleveland High School, Scruggs Elementary School, Resurrection of Our Lord, and St. John the Baptist Elementary and High schools are all shuttered schools that were once part of Kunkelmann’s neighborhood.
“I feel that around my neighborhood, there are so many schools that are testaments to white flight and disinvestment in the neighborhood and in the community,” she says. “I do not want to see another closed school.”
Kunkelmann says that the St. Mary’s students are good neighbors. She likes seeing them participate in neighborhood cleanup events or listening to their football games on fall nights. She likes living in Dutchtown, and “St. Mary's absolutely adds to the vibrancy.”
Schillinger adds that maybe it’s the city of St. Louis that can learn something from St. Mary’s. “[The students] come from diverse backgrounds and with different educational skills and from different parts of the community and also different financial backgrounds,” the St. Mary’s parent says. “Some kids come from families that struggle, some kids come from families that have a little bit of money. But when you walk in those halls and you see those kids interact, they just look at each other as friends and as brothers, and they all support each other. They cheer for each other and love each other. I think we can all learn a lot from those kids.”
