There is gang activity, drugs, and guns near the school, as well as 89 level two and three sex offenders in the neighborhood of St. Joseph’s, she said, and Kingston Catholic has 91 registered sex offenders.
The Dornans said Diocese officials were unmoved by their presentation. “We got a lot of lip service, ” Dornan said. “Where’s the safety plan? The safety of these children has been wholly ignored.”
Dornan has little faith in church leadership, but he believes strongly in Catholic education. Dornan and his wife are considering moving so their children can attend Catholic school in another town, even if it means a long drive to his job as a special education teacher in the Onteora School District.
‘They saved my daughter’
Other parents are more sad than angry. Jocelyn Cariello was heartbroken when she received a letter saying the school would close, though it won’t affect her family directly.
Her daughter is in eighth grade and will be part of the last graduating class at St. Mary.
Cariello credits St. Mary with her daughter’s success, saying she moved her daughter to St. Mary in the second grade after she suffered from anxiety.
Cariello has worked as a public school teaching assistant for 26 years but she believes some kids need another choice.
The Cariellos liked the small classes that gave the teacher more time to help her daughter.
“Every teacher knows every single student, the principal knows every student; togetherness, safety, and love, my daughter will take that away,” Cariello said.
She likes how Catholic school teachers control their classes. They know when to hug a kid and when to reprimand them, she said.
“They saved my daughter,” Cariello said. “They turned her around. She is a straight A student with little-to-no anxiety now.”
Cariello will miss St. Mary and she believes Saugerties will, too. “No matter how big it is it has a huge heart. It is a huge part of the Saugerties community; it shows dynamite comes in a small package.”
While Cariello’s daughter will attend Coleman Catholic High School in Kingston next year, she feels bad for the parents who must figure out where to send their kids after St. Mary of the Snow closes.
The parents feel helpless their school is closing and because they don’t know which Kingston campus their kids will go to, Cariello said.
Kingston plan still up in the air
The Diocese put the merger between Kingston Catholic and Saint Joseph’s on hold for 40 days at the end of February, leaving parents unsure about which school their children will attend.
Fran Davies, a spokesperson at the Archdiocese, offered this statement regarding the merger: “A local committee has been established to offer a recommendation to the superintendent regarding the direction and future plans for Catholic education in the Kingston area,” she said. “The recommendation will be rendered in April, and no further information can be offered prior to that date.”
On top of this feeling of helplessness and uncertainty, parents like the Manolis or the Dornans have a limited time to decide what school their children will attend next year.
April 1 is the deadline for parents to submit requests for transportation to private schools, Saugerties Central Schools Superintendent Seth Turner said.
New York State law requires this deadline, and it allows the school district to plan for the cost of transportation, he said. Public schools are obligated to provide free transportation for children to private schools within 15 miles of that family’s home, so students in some parts of Saugerties will be bused to Kingston, while others who fall outside that range (as with the northern and western parts of town) will have to find another way to get there.
While the Diocese sorts out the situation in Kingston, Turner recommends parents send in their transportation request forms with their choice of school as soon as possible to meet the deadline.
Other parents have turned to public schools. Turner does not anticipate these additional students having a large impact on enrollment at elementary schools in the district.
“We are staying in communication with the building principals at Saint Mary’s and Saint Joseph’s,” Turner said. “There are some unanswered questions from the Archdiocese about which school kids will attend in Kingston.”
He is unsure how the closing will affect the district’s budget. Saugerties provides a part-time special education teacher and academic intervention in early literacy and mathematics to Saint Mary of the Snow, so the closing may lead to cost savings from a staffing reduction, and those savings could be offset by the cost of sending a bus to Kingston; especially a large bus, said Turner.
Officials at Saint Joseph’s Elementary School and St. Mary of the Snow declined to comment for this article.
