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Upper Manhattan Parents Rally to Save Local Catholic School from Chopping Block

By Carla Zanoni | November 18, 2010 6:45am

By Carla Zanoni

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

INWOOD — One week after parents learned that Good Shepherd parochial school was in danger of closing, parents mounted an online campaign to keep the doors open.

Regina Christoforatos said she was "hysterical crying" when she received a letter stating that her daughter's school — and the school she and her siblings attended in the 1980s — was "at risk" of being shut down after the 2011-'12 school year.

"I was aware that the school was having financial difficulty because of the low enrollment," she said of the kindergarten through 8th-grade school, "but I didn't know exactly how much trouble they were actually in."

The letter Christoforatos received detailed the Archdiocese of New York's preliminary determination that Good Shepherd, located at 620 Isham St., had been identified as an at-risk school because of dwindling enrollment rates, and means the school may lose "financial subsidies" from the Archdiocese.

Signs in the doorway to the school, which was founded in 1925, advertise scholarships, though sources say even that incentive has not been successful in bringing a substantial number of new students in the door.

"These under-enrolled schools require significant financial support from the archdiocese, which cannot be sustained indefinitely," Dr. Timothy J. McNiff, Superintendent of Schools, said in a public statement. "We need to allocate our resources where they can do the most good, and support schools that can sustain themselves over time."

A final decision regarding closures is scheduled in January 2011. Representatives from the Archdiocese did not respond to requests for comment.

In the meantime, parents are looking into ways to prevent Good Shepherd from closing, including consolidating the school’s operations in order to sell some of its property, or raising funds from alum. The parent’s online petition and Facebook page have engaged more than 400 people so far.

Dalba Castrillon, one of the petition organizers whose daughter attends Good Shepherd, helped mount a campaign to keep the school's doors open.

Castrillon said she has been pleased with the school's academic performance, which she said has turned around substantially in the past three or four years. The Inwood mom said that students' state test scores improved dramatically over that time.

"I was hoping that results like that would give the school a boost and the word would spread in the community and we would have more children registered," she said.

According to parents, a meeting between the school's principal, the church's pastor and the Archdiocese is scheduled for Monday next week.

"People want to save the school, and they are willing to put their money on the line for us," Castrillon said. "We just need to know exactly what is needed and wanted of us and we will do it."