Hello, Neighbor
Let’s do a hand count.
Raise them up if you attended a Catholic elementary school on Staten Island.
Whoa. Twenty years ago, there would have been a lot more hands in the air.
This is Catholic School Week, as a neighbor of ours and a mother who accompanied my kid to the Academy of St. Dorothy in Grasmere reminded me.
brought up memories of my time at that similar academy. Yes, the school was still in existence at that time.
In our kindergarten class, there were sixty children. Mother Cravinho was taught to us by a nun. Don’t paraphrase. Mother Lillian Cravinho alone. Is it possible? One instructor, sixty five-year-olds, all of them crying, all of them missing their mothers?
At the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the Academy of St. Dorothy, Sister Lillian Cravinho is seated on the left. Sister Mary Margaret Souza, former principal; Sister Rosalie Patrello, former principal; and Sister Sharon McCarthy, former principal of St. Dorothy, are pictured standing in back from left. Sister Caridad Portu, the provincial coordinator of the Sisters of St. Dorothy and a former educator; Cynthia Reimer, a St. Dorothy alumnus; and Alison Klein, a graduate. Nancy Bushman, a graduate, and Sister Lillian Cravinho are seated from the left. (The Advance of Staten Island)STATETEN ISLAND PROGRESS
Located on a hill in Grasmere with a view of Hylan Boulevard, Villa Tocci was a three-story, yellow-brick villa that served as the first school structure on the 13-acre campus.
Before it was demolished, the mansion on the hilltop of the St. Dorothy campus. (The Advance of Staten Island)Advance of Staten Island
Surrounded by landscaped gardens, fountains, and grape arbors, the Roman-style chateau was filled with antiques.
In 1932, the Goggi family sold the estate of the renowned Goggi Bros. winery in Stapleton to the Sisters of St. Dorothy.
As a child, plucking grapes during recess was enjoyable. According to the sisters, they made jelly out of the grapes for our PB&Js at lunch. Respectfully, Sisters, are you certain there wasn’t another use for it? It might have been referred to as medicinal.
In a horse barn, I started my rocky educational path.
As membership increased, the 60 of us were forced to relocate to an outpost in the Grasmere hills after an old stable on the property was renovated. From my perspective, it was something that we shared with Baby Jesus.
Enrollment kept increasing. A school building was constructed, followed by an addition. A new convent was constructed when the mansion that served as the nuns’ convent was destroyed. A gymnasium was added at last.
Catholic education undoubtedly flourished from St. George to Tottenville during that time, while it’s possible that the Academy of St. Dorothy had greater expansion than other Catholic institutions on the Island. particularly in grades six, seven, and eight. For Grade 6, public school parents who were afraid to send their children to junior high or intermediate school hurried to Catholic schools.
Then something happened in the 2000s. The demographics of Staten Island changed. Staten Island is still roughly 45 percent Catholic and 25 percent Italian, but those percentages have decreased from over 50 percent Catholic and nearly 40 percent Italian.
Both the number of young women entering convents and church attendance declined. As fewer nuns taught, the number of lay instructors rose along with their pay. As aging school buildings became more expensive to maintain, churches shuttered or amalgamated, and their schools followed suit.
Staten Island lost fifteen Catholic primary schools between 2013 and today. There were just 167 pupils in the eight classes at St. Joseph’s in Rosebank when it closed in 2013. When Midland Beach’s St. Margaret Mary closed in 2011, there were just 74 pupils enrolled. When their doors closed the same year, St. Sylvester’s in Concord had 120 and St. Roch’s in Port Richmond had 96.
The city’s Catholic schools continue to close. Twelve closed in 2023, and four closed at the end of the previous year.
Of course, Covid had a part. Charter schools also do this. When they truly wanted the discipline that Catholic schools provide, many parents who had previously been willing to pay for a Catholic education switched to charter schools, which have stricter rules than traditional public schools. Education is also free. In New York State, vouchers for private schools are still nonexistent.
When you combine all of that, Catholic schools are navigating the ideal storm.
St. Clare in Great Kills is one Staten Island school that is competing, if not thriving. Of course, it’s due to the schooling. However, it goes beyond that.
I questioned why some people are having difficulty while a St. Clare may survive for nearly a century.
The academic and pastoral goals of every Staten Island Catholic school, as well as those of all the schools in the Archdiocese of New York, are exemplified by the mission of St. Clare School.Staten Island Catholic Schools’ regional superintendent, Jann Amato, informed me.Its goal, which is rooted in faith, is to give each kid a superb academic and spiritual foundation in a loving and secure family setting, she said.St. Clare School has been dedicated to those principles for almost a century. Our children flourish and develop their God-given abilities in our thriving Catholic schools.
I thought back last week on how New Dorp High School and its instructors influenced my life. By coincidence, this week I came onto an article written by Julianna Taliento, an eighth-grader at St. Clare.
The eighth-grader described how St. Clare’s influenced her life as part of the celebrations for Catholic School Week.
This is what Julianna wrote.
Nothing Gold Can Stay is a poem by Robert Frost. However, I know of this quote the best from The Outsiders.
In both the poem and the book, the meaning is consistent. It demonstrates how no matter how beautiful something is, no matter how wonderful it is, change is inevitable.
As soon as I read this quote and understood the full meaning of it, I immediately thought of my time at here at St. Clare School.
I walked into the preschool at 3, holding on to my mom for dear life.
Within no time, I began to feel the comfort, and love that was all around the building. Little by little I made friends and learned the ropes. Those first friends at 3 are still my friends now. We had so much fun and made countless memories. Together we moved up to the big school, made our communion, had a global pandemic, and in what seems like the blink of an eye we are at the end of the road here.
We are in the eighth grade. We had our Christmas Pageant, which always felt like years away. I remember watching both my brothers perform their show and just a month ago, I had my turn.
Inside these walls there are endless moments. This school is home in so many ways and for so many reasons. Unfortunately, I left here for a few months last year and I truly believe that is making me really understand and enjoy this last year.
While I was gone, I missed my friends. I missed my teachers, but I also missed the things you don t even think about. My uniform that I put on both willingly and unwillingly for 10 years. Standing for prayers. Driving into the parking lot. Inside jokes with my classmates. It truly makes you realize that it s the little things that are so memorable and beautiful and mean the most to us.
Unfortunately, that all must change.
My time here as well as my classmates time has been a wonderful ride. We, or at least definitely me, came in crying and I will definitely leave here crying in June.
We grew up here. We all walked in practically as babies and strangers but 10 years later, after countless mornings, many lunches, many laughs, and I guess some tears, we leave here as family. We learned to read and write here, we learned to socialize and draw and pray. In this beautiful church altogether we graduated, we made sacraments, we celebrated countless Masses and in four months we will graduate and celebrate Mass as a class for the last time.
On June 13, 2025 we will go from students to alumni because Nothing Gold Can Stay.
What more is there to say?
Brian
Oh by the way:A little advice to the Never Trumpers on Staten Island albeit quite a small group: If you want to keep your credibility, back off the grocery prices for a while. Day-after-day, left-wing talking heads on cable news are slamming Trump because food costs haven t plummeted yet. As are some of my regular Trump-hating email buddies. The guy made a slew of campaign promises yes, lowering prices was one and he s acting on a slew of them, most of which Never Trumpers no doubt disagree. But grocery prices aren t going to plunge in the first week or two of any presidency. Let s see what happens in a couple of months at the supermarket checkout line, or at the gas pump. If the prices are the same, feel free: Attack, attack, attack.
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