Baltimore Catholic School Closings

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has decided to close 13 of its schools due to falling attendance and rising costs. Like most businesses in the area, they are suffering in this economy that just can't seem to be fixed with increased government spending. And when costs start exceeding revenue, you have to cut costs or increase prices, unless, of course, you are the government. Then you just print more money or borrow more from the Chinese and the Middle East. But the Archdiocese of Baltimore doesn't have the option to borrow money from Asian communists or Islamic dictators.

Most of these schools are suffering because the middle class of Baltimore City have been fleeing the city for years. I should know. My family was one of them. And now there just aren't enough children of middle class families to support the vast network of schools that the Archdiocese built to support the middle class who didn't want to send their children to the miserable and failing public schools of Baltimore City.

I probably wouldn't care too much about this whole issue except for one fact. I attended one of the schools that is being closed. In 1977 my parents enrolled me into St. Anthony's on Frankford Avenue, just south of Bel Air Road. I went there from 1st grade all the way through 8th grade. And like most children, my fondest memories of my childhood are at that school or with my friends from St. Anthony's.

My first memory of the school is when my mother dropped me off at the front steps and told me to go inside to room 105. I walk into the school and have no idea where room 105 is, so I stand there and cry.

When I first started attending the school, there were 3-4 classrooms for each grade with each class having about 30 students. That's huge by today's standards when parents demand no more than 15 students in a class. So assuming 90 students per grade, 8 grades, we probably had over 700 students when I first starting going to school there. And I think it's safe to say was probably more as most of the upper grades had 4 classes per grade. And they all had big flowing Barry Gibbs hair.

However, as I moved up in grade level, the newer classes were smaller. By the time I graduated 8th grade in 1986 most of the younger classes were 2 rooms each. I didn't keep in touch with the school after 8th grade as we moved from Rosedale to Bel Air where I attended Bel Air High School, which, coincidentally, was torn down this year to make way for a new high school. So now 2 of the 3 schools that I attended will be gone. The other school that I attended was McCormick Elementary School in Rosedale, where I went for Kindergarten. This is now a Baltimore County ghetto school.

In the late 90's the school attendance dropped dramatically and it eventually merged with some other schools and was renamed Mother Mary Lange Catholic School. St. Anthony must be all fired up - no offense Mother Mary Lange.

So while I understand that the Archdiocese must close schools in order to continue operating effectively, it saddens me to know that part of my childhood will no longer be there. But on the other hand, I probably wouldn't be caught dead in that area today anyway. So from Principal Duckett to Principal MacIntyre to Principal Moore, St. Anthony's is no more.