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Newsday (Melville, NY) March 6, 1986 Closing of Catholic High
School Set Citing declining enrollment, officials of the Queen of the Rosary Academy in Amityville have decided to close the 110-year-old Catholic high school in June. But students, parents and alumni say they will not let that happen without a fight, and are planning fund-raisers to try and keep the academy open. "I don't know if we're being too optimistic, but we're going to try everything we can," said Raymond McDonough, president of the Queen of the Rosary Academy Parents' Club. "It's a very special school." The all-girls school, located in a three-story, white stucco building along Albany Road, is run by the Sisters of St. Dominic. During the past decade, enrollment has declined steadily. According to data from the state Education Department, 571 students were enrolled in Queen of the Rosary Academy in 1970. By 1979, that number had dropped to 288, and by 1984, to 214. This year, there are 176 students enrolled, said a spokeswoman for the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville. The decision to close the school was made by Sister Mary Ryan, prioress of the order, and announced to the students Monday. The school operates independently of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, which two years ago closed three of its parochial high schools, also citing declining enrollment. "When I found out, I started crying. We all did," said Irene Reilly, a senior from Point Lookout. "We've always prided our school on being different. Maybe we don't have the best facilities, the most money . . . but we always had a good time." Justine O'Rourke, a sophomore from Levittown, said that students are hoping to hold car washes, bake sales and other types of fund-raisers to keep the school going. "We're going to give it the biggest fight ever, even if at the end they say it's not enough," she said. A press release issued by the Sisters of St. Dominic said the congregational leadership would work with the administration of other high schools in the area to place students from the academy. But students say it won't be the same. Although the academy is small, there is a closeness of spirit that makes it special, they say. "There's a unique family atmosphere at that school, and a caring about the girls," said McDonough's wife, Patricia, who graduated from the academy in 1960, and whose two daughters currently attend. "It would be a real disservice to close it." "It's not just a bunch of desks and chairs here," said Rachel Robinson, a junior. "When you walk down the hall, if somebody has a problem, everybody knows about it." She said she is worried because she has one more year before graduation and doesn't want to spend it at a school where she doesn't know anyone. A spokeswoman for the Sisters of St. Dominic said no additional information on the school closing would be released until school administrators have an opportunity to meet with students and parents. A meeting is scheduled for today at 8 p.m. in the school auditorium. Copyright (c) 1986 Newsday,
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January 13, 1991 Nuns' New Mission: Housing
At its peak, the Queen of the Rosary Academy drew 800 high school students to its North Amityville site surrounded by apple orchards, the brick buildings housing the Sisters of St. Dominic, and the tiny chapel built 103 years ago and recently rolled on tree logs to a new spot. But like many Catholic schools on Long Island, the Queen of the Rosary Academy fell victim to dwindling numbers of children on Long Island and closed in 1986 after enrollment dropped to 250 students. Now, after five years of considering how to best use the school and seeking town approval for their idea, the Sisters of St. Dominic hope to break ground next month on a first phase $9.6-million residence for the elderly that combines independent living with communal activities. The high school will house a restaurant-style cafeteria, exercise room, beauty parlor and other rooms for activities that residents will choose. It will be linked by indoor passageways to four 2 1/2-story apartment houses for the independent elderly. A separate section of the high school will have 66 studios for those who need some help with daily needs, such as cleaning, doing laundry, bathing or dressing. Called congregate housing, the concept is aimed at middle-class retirees with income too high for them to apply for government aid and too low to afford complexes catering to the wealthy, said Sister Helen Butler, a Dominican nun serving as director of the nonprofit board set up to run the Dominican Village, as the complex will be named. "It's the middle class that doesn't have the opportunity because everything on Long Island is so expensive," Butler said. Butler describes the Dominicans' plan as part of the orders' centuries-old philosophy - to serve others with dignity - that they have been applying in trade schools and orphanages on Long Island and at their North Amityville site on Albany Avenue since 1876. With the orphanages replaced by foster homes and the trade schools long closed, the nuns decided to help another growing segment of society, the elderly. According to a report released by the Washington, D.C.,-based Urban Institute, titled "The Needs of the Elderly in the 21st Century," researchers say that by the year 2030 the percentage of elderly owning their own homes will rise to 80 percent from about 60 percent because of added years that Americans will be working. At the same time, another boost will come from aging baby boomers. One study notes that 21.9 million Americans were 65 or older in 1986. By the year 2030, that number is expected to increase 21 percent. The Dominican Village, aimed at ambulatory retirees around the age of 75, is sorely needed, said Joseph Clemente, Suffolk County commissioner of the Department for the Aging. "There's a need to take care of those at the poverty level and below," Clemente said. "But there's also a tremendous market for those who can't afford the large one-family home and who are looking for alternatives." A survey his department sent last year to elderly residents asking them to rate three top priorities showed that housing came in second after the concern about long-term health care. Clemente said the assistance offered to some of the residents will help them stay psychologically fit by keeping them as independent as possible, while the communal meals will provide opportunities for them to socialize. Butler estimates that the cost for one person renting an apartment there will be between $1,400 and $1,500 a month, or about $17,000 a year. That compares to her estimation of $1,030 monthly or about $12,000 annually for one person living in a $150,000 house. The monthly fee at the village includes a variety of services, including taxes, heating, security, some transportation and the one meal a day. But some say they worry the rent might be too high and that the shrinking number of women entering the order each year will make staffing the center increasingly difficult in the future. "Many seniors will look at $1,500 a month and say it's very expensive," Clemente said. "But I think there will be a market for it. Many people will not want to be institutionalized even though many nursing homes are of country club quality." Robert Kaufold, a Babylon Town Board member who has supported the project, also said the rent might be steep. In addition, he said he was worried that as fewer novices join St. Dominic, the facility will have to hire added outside help at ever-increasing prices, forcing the rent to rise. "I appreciate the sense of mission," Kaufold said of the nuns. "But my concern is the issue of the health of the Sisters of St. Dominic as a religious organization. With more and more paid people, it can become self-defeating." Butler admits that the numbers of novices are alarmingly small. Only one or two women are joining the order annually, compared with a high of up to 60 in the 1950s and 1960s. But she said that outside help, preferably from the surrounding communities, will work at the facility from the beginning, when it is expected to open in spring, 1992. The nuns and the outside staff who will do the housekeeping, run cafeteria services, coordinate activities and operate the center will be paid equally, so that when more outside help is needed, the costs shouldn't go up, she said. And so far 140 respondents to a query about interest in the Dominican Village that Butler advertised in a diocesan newspaper said they are willing to pay the rent, she said. Costs have been kept down by starting with only one of the four buildings and constructing the rest as needed. The mortgage for the complex will go through the state Housing Finance Agency, which gives a lower mortgage rate than market rates and the state Housing Trust Fund has granted the Village $1.7 million toward soft costs, such as administrative expenses, Butler said. The nuns established a nonprofit corporation to handle the finances and oversee the operation. Sitting in a small cottage on the site, Butler points out architectural renderings of the residences, which were to have been four stories tall but were scaled down after a new town administration took over in 1987 and denied the zoning variance to its 35-foot high limit on buildings. Outside the cottage sits the high school, with not a single window broken or a mark of graffiti sprayed on its side in the five years it has been empty. Behind it is Our Lady of Prouille Retreat Center, once used by the nuns for contemplation and destined to be torn down. The nuns use the term buffer zone when they describe the 13-acre site - with its apple orchards dissolving into grassy stretches, cemetery and buildings housing elderly nuns and the administration office - that lies between the industrial area of New Highway and the residential area starting on Albany Avenue. When the first nuns arrived from Brooklyn 115 years ago, the area was nothing but farmland. Farmers bringing their produce to market shaped what became New Highway as they rode their horse-drawn carts over the road. Four Dominican nuns came to the United States in 1853 from a cloistered community in Regensburg, on the Danube River, in Germany that dates back to the 1300s. A visitor to the Amityville Community, as the nuns call it, can feel an echo of the cloistered life in the replica of the enclosed courtyard and chapel surrounded by arched hallways. In 1876, a group of Dominican nuns from Brooklyn established the Amityville center, and today there are about 900 nuns based there, with thousands living in the rest of the country and in a community in Puerto Rico. They are required to have college degrees before being initiated and their activities are as varied as running Molloy College in Rockville Centre, Consolation Residence nursing home in West Islip and a home for runaway girls and two high schools in Queens. The Dominican Village planned for the Amityville community brings the nuns into a new phase of serving, Butler said. "We respond to the needs that emerge with each age," she said. "It's based on respecting the dignity of persons." Copyright (c) 1991 Newsday,
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