Today's papers report that Rice High School has not been able to raise enough funds to prevent closing its doors and will apparently do so next month. News broke this past April that the boys Catholic school by the corner of 124th Street and Lenox had been facing difficulties because of declining enrollment along with a dwindling supply of traditional donors:
LINK. The school founded in 1938 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers is notable for its one hundred percent college acceptance rate in the past years but the $5 million needed to prevent the institution from closing appears to be out of reach:
LINK
Really a shame.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame, but typical. My catholic high school (La Salle Academy on 2nd Ave and 2nd St) just closed its doors last year. The infrastructure is just not there anymore.
ReplyDeleteA real shame. What happens then to the kids who are already there? Coming from London, I don't think I have ever seen such a bizarre system as here in NYC with schools closing at will (being forced to close). I know there is a lot of extra pressure here in terms of number of students and Manhattan by comparison is such small area to work with, but it is still so sad to see.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think the population was there for La Salle as, if I remember correctly, it was there to serve the immigrant children of the lower east side. But there is still SUCH a need for a quality high school in Harlem serving young men.
ReplyDeleteAnd they have a helluva basketball team.
Chris, Rice is not public school, it is administered by the Catholic Diocese of New York. Students pay to attend.
ReplyDeleteThe public school closed, or that are planning on being closed, are those who have consistently failed students. And ‘closed’ is a misnomer. The physical plants are not closed, new, usually smaller schools ad usually more than one, use the space with hopefully better outcomes.
my mistake. . . evidently run by the Christian Brothers as a private high school, not a parochial high school of the Diocese.
ReplyDeleteLa Salle was simply a high-quality high school for Catholic boys who lived in the five boroughs. Almost no one lived in the Lower East Side.....
ReplyDeleteLa Salle was famous for its track team -- the students who were shut out have starting going to a neighboring Catholic school .... which will probably be the case here.
I have an old beau who went to Rice and he was/is a nice Irish Boy from Queens. But now they appear to draw mainly from the neighbourhood. I used to live two blocks from LaSalle and thought, obviously incorrectly, that it served the Hispanic population of the LES.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if co ed enrollment would have saved the school.
ReplyDeleteMy school (Academy of St Joseph) use to have dances with LaSalle. St Josephs shut it's doors the end of 2009. Before doing so, they went co-ed. they even had night college - but none of that helped. It will become condo's.....
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