Saturday, July 21, 2012

Archdiocese, city spar over buildings

In a city where public schools are among the worst in the state, recent efforts to open new charter schools and reduce a waiting list that is at least 2,200 kids long have run into a wall: the Catholic Church. 

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is refusing to sell several churches and schools it has closed in Lawrence to buyers who would open charter schools in the buildings, fearful that the new schools would compete with the last of the Catholic schools still operating in the city.

Among them, the church earlier this year rejected a $1.5 million offer for the former St. Mary’s of the Assumption Grammar School on Haverhill Street from The Community Group Inc., a non-profit organization that already operates a charter school in Lawrence and would have opened another at St. Mary’s in September, according to a lawyer for the organization.

A private foundation supporting the charter school offered to sweeten the offer with a pledge to pay the tuition needed to fill empty seats at local Catholic schools for five years, and another $50,000 grant, which the church also rejected.

Mayor William Lantigua recently wrote to Cardinal Sean O’Malley asking him to reverse the policy blocking sales of church property to buyers who would open schools on the sites. 

Lantigua also asked O’Malley to end a similar policy banning the sale of church properties that would be used for purposes that violate church teachings, including abortion clinics, which Lantigua said is handicapping economic development in a city where the unemployment rate remains in the double digits.

”It’s becoming an obstacle, with some of these restrictions,” said Patrick Blanchette, the city’s director of economic development. “Some of the churches that have closed are full city blocks. It’s hindering our community.”

A spokesman for O’Malley yesterday re-affirmed the policies and rejected Lantigua’s plea.

“In Lawrence, as in all parts of the Archdiocese, it is our responsibility to protect the strength of existing Catholic schools.” 

O’Malley spokesman Terrence Donilon said in an e-mailed response to questions about the policy. “We are not willing to pursue real estate transactions that might negatively impact the enrollment and vibrancy of existing Catholic schools.”

Donilon added that criticism of the policy is “a slap in the face of the good work the church is doing,” including the 125 parochial schools it operates in the Boston Archdiocese. Statewide, Donilon said Catholic schools save localites tens of millions of dollars in education costs.

The church policies were first described by Commonwealth Magazine last week.

The magazine also reported that the archdiocese in March sold the former Holy Trinity School on Trinity Street to developer Alberto Nunez for $500,000, but not until Nunez agreed to a deed restriction blocking schools from opening in the building for 90 years. 

Nunez could not be reached yesterday. 

The building had been empty for about eight years.

Several other buildings the church has closed in recent years remain empty, including Saints Peter and Paul, a former church and rectory, and Our Lady of Good Counsel, a former grammar and middle school on Lowell Street.

The church policy banning schools from the properties it sells forced Shelia Balboni, chief executive officer of Community Day Care Charter Public Schools, and Suzanne Wright, who runs a local foundation that supports the charter school organization, to look elsewhere for a home for the two charter schools Balboni is opening in September. 

Wright had offered $1.5 million for the former St. Mary’s campus, as well as the $50,000 grant and the five-years of scholarships for Catholic schools in the city 

Balboni will open the two schools in one building at 711 Ballard Way in South Lawrence, but will limit enrollment to 120 students in each of the schools because of the small size of the building. She said she hopes to acquire another site so that she can grow enrollment at each of the schools to 400. 

Balboni said she is “disappointed that church buildings were not available to us,” but would not criticize the church policy.

Kennedy Hilario, Balboni’s director of schools, said the alternative the charter schools offer are critical for students in a city that has some of the worst test scores and highest drop-out rates in the state, a factor that caused the state to sieze the city’s schools and appoint a receiver last year. 

“We have a track record,” Hilario said. “Because graduation rates are so low in Lawrence (public schools), the fact that 97 percent of our kids graduate and 85 percent go on to college – that’s the kind of education we need to lift education in Lawrence.”