Sign up to receive updates when articles like this are published. Sign up to receive alerts when articles like this are published. Three struggling parish schools that had been considered for closing, two in Harlem and one in Rockland County, will remain open after demonstrating in business plans submitted last week that they were on the road to fiscal self-sufficiency, the archdiocese said. The decision to close three schools came just two days before the church is to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of Cardinal John J. O'Connor and reflects the difficult financial situation that Cardinal Egan inherited from his predecessor.
Cutbacks are likely to continue.
The archdiocese last month announced a major consolidation of seminary programs, and Cardinal Egan ordered an in-depth financial review of all departments at the church's headquarters on First Avenue to identify further reductions. The archdiocese's superintendent of schools, Catherine Hickey, said she was pleased that only three schools would close and that the others reduced their budget gaps by raising tuition and increasing enrollment. N.Y. More than 460 students, from prekindergarten through eighth grade, attend the schools. N.Y. All three are to get help from private benefactors, church officials said. In addition, John A. Coleman High School in Hurley, N.Y., which in February became the first school marked for closing because of budget cuts, will be allowed to remain open.