The Archdiocese of Chicago plans to close six Catholic grade schools this year, citing declining enrollment and ongoing financial losses.
Four of the schools are in Chicago:
- Sts. Bruno and Richard, 5025 S. Kenneth Ave. in Archer Heights
- St. Jerome, 2801 S. Princeton Ave. in Armour Square
- St. Francis Borgia, 3535 N. Panama Ave. in Dunning
- St. Stanislaus Kostka, 1255 N. Noble St. in West Town.
Two suburban schools slated for closure are: Our Lady of Humility in Beach Park; and St. Hubert in Hoffman Estates.
The schools, pre-K through 8th grade, will close at the end of the school year, Greg Richmond, superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese, said in a statement.
“We made these decisions with heavy hearts after months of discussions with each school,” he said.
“We know the importance of these schools in each community. Unfortunately, the enrollment of each school is too low, and the ongoing deficits are too high. Many people have worked hard at each school to raise money and try to boost enrollment. We recognize and value those efforts but, in the end, the schools were not able to close the gaps and they are no longer sustainable.”
The Archdiocese of Chicago has been shedding students and schools since its peak enrollment of 366,000 students in the mid-1960s. Enrollment has declined since then, propelled by the introduction of charter schools in the 1990s, and the church’s clergy sex abuse scandals in the early 2000s — which have resulted in multi-million dollar settlements and financial strain for the church.
More than 67,000 students were enrolled at 186 Catholic schools in Cook and Lake Counties in 2024, according to the Archdiocese.
The six schools slated for closure had declining enrollment over the past decade, although their enrollment was relatively flat since 2020, according to filings with the Illinois State Board of Education. The two suburban schools, St. Hubert and Our Lady of Humility, had a little more than 200 students for the 2024-2025 school year:
Each Chicago school had lower numbers: Sts. Bruno and Richard had 191 students; St Jerome had 114 across its two campuses; St Francis Borgia had 157; St. Stanislaus Kostka had 137.
Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) lamented the closure of St. Jerome in Armour Square, built in 1922 and originally attended by the area’s Croatian population.
“St. Jerome’s has played a big role in educating our young people and the loss of this institution will be deeply felt,” she said in a social media post.
The school’s pastor, Rev. Antonio Musa, said the school had an enrollment of 95 students this year and an expected deficit of $450,000.
The “financial burden of such a large deficit has become unbearable for the Parish at this time, and the Archdiocese decided to close the School,” he said in a social media post.
The school lost many students in the last couple years, Musa said, after Illinois got rid of a program that funded scholarships for private school tuition. He said demographic trends in the area were not working in the school’s favor, and that the school had recently invested $4.5 million in the schools campus over the last few years.
“One of our hopes was that this would reverse trends at our School,” Musa wrote. “Unfortunately, this did not happen.”
The Archdiocese has previously blamed declining enrollment on the loss of the scholarship program for private schools. When the church closed two grade schools in suburban Berwyn and Cicero in 2024, leaders credited the state’s Invest in Kids state scholarship program with covering tuition for more than half of the schools’ students.
In the program, taxpayers could earn an income tax credit by donating to scholarship funds that send lower-income students to private schools. But when Invest in Kids was terminated at the end of 2023, the church said the loss created an “insurmountable gap.”
Leona Hunter took to Facebook to mourn the expected closing of St. Jerome, where she said she taught the 4th grade in the 1970s.
“My thoughts, love and prayers are with all of you at this difficult time,” she wrote. “Most of the schools I have taught in during my 40 years as an educator have closed.”