St. Hubert’s Students Rally In Support Of Their School

January 9, 2012 1:30 PM

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By Nicole Brewer

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — There were streaming tears, shouts and cheers as the ladies of Saint Hubert’s let out their frustration via Monday morning’s rally on the front steps of their high school.

“Honestly, I think they made a mistake,” said senior Erin Adelsberger.

Fellow senior Morgan McCarthy agrees.

“This is a punishment we don’t deserve.”

Emotions have been running high since Friday when Archbishop Charles Chaput announced that their high school would be one of four shut down, along with 44 elementary schools that will be closed, consolidated or regionalized.

In a press conference held Friday afternoon, Archbishop Chaput defended the Archdiocese’ decision.

“The restructuring proposed in the commission’s report is a critical first step in renewing the health of our Catholic education ministry. And in the long run, that will help all of Philadelphia.”

The decision, which came as a recommendation from the Blue Ribbon Commission, could save the Archdiocese $10 million dollars per year.

But, for Marianne Burpulis, a former student turned parent and teacher, it is a tradition worth holding on to.

“This is one of the saddest days of my life to see this building and this tradition in demise.”

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St. Huberts Students Rally In Support Of Their School

Mike Alexander

The way some of these reactions have been, you would think they’re being told they’re not allowed to go to school at all.
banager

Boycott the church, after all they are wasting all the money covering the law suits for the priest who molested small children, then stand up there and lie to your face when they say our parish is doing fine, while all along they know it is closing.

Father Feelgood

Ding, Ding, Ding we got a winner here!

kay

This is a harsh reality; it is sad but these moves are necessary. Look, we would all like to not see this happen but that isn’t remotely realistic. The only response you get from people wanting to keep these schools open is “tradition”. You cannot run a school on “tradition”. Most of these schools were built at a time when there were 4 – 5 times the number of students and nuns and priests (i.e., cheap labor) taught and ran the schools. If they really want the school to survive, they need to give a viable fiscal plan to make that happen. I have not heard one person do that (by the way, selling the Vatican’s art treasures is not an option; the Vatican is not in any way connected to funding of Philadelphia schools). There are two ways to raise the money – tuition increases of 100+% and/or raising more money in Sunday collection.

Craig Nolan

Increasing tuition is not the answer. If you increase the tuition more students will be forced to leave and go to public or charter schools. One solution would be to sell
the convents and rectory’s that are so big and housing only one or two priest or sister’s.You Know the Catholic church is the richest organizations in the would. Give these school a chance to try to help themselves just like what happened in 1992 when other schools were slated to close. A year latter open enrollment started and that hurt a lot of these school because the feeder schools students could go anywhere they wanted.Another thing they ‘re not telling us what the enrollment is in the schools they are keeping open.Maybe they shouls close instead of the one’s that are closing.