This article originally ran Aug. 28, 2009 in The New York Times
NEWARK — Gone are the crucifixes in every classroom and the carvings of the Virgin Mary from the airy, red-brick building that has been home to St. Mary’s School at the Newark Abbey since 2001.
The fixtures were relocated — along with St. Mary’s — to make way for a charter school, Robert Treat Academy, to open a second campus here this month. It is the first time that the Benedictine monks have allowed a nonreligious school to operate on the grounds of the monastery, whose Victorian-style towers span two city blocks in the Central Ward.
The arrangement generates $150,000 a year in rent for the Newark Abbey, which also operates a Roman Catholic high school for boys, St. Benedict’s Preparatory, and underpins a more ambitious plan to share not just space but also resources. Robert Treat is proposing that its students be allowed to use a swimming pool and field house on the grounds and have future access to St. Benedict’s Latin and advanced math teachers, and is envisioning sending more of its eighth-grade graduates to St. Benedict’s.
The Robert Treat Academy, which has an extended school year, began classes down the street from St. Benedict’s in a building that was constructed for St. Mary’s, which had previously shared space with St. Benedict’s. St. Mary’s students, who begin classes in September, will have one building of their own, but will largely return to sharing with St. Benedict’s.
Such collaboration between Catholic and charter schools is unusual, because Catholic leaders have long viewed charter schools, which are publicly financed and independently run, as competing for the same students. Some Catholic officials even contend that charter schools masquerade as Catholic schools because they offer the traditional hallmarks of a Catholic education — strict discipline, uniforms, specialized programs and character education — but without charging tuition.
Yet many Catholic schools, facing declining enrollment and rising operating costs, are seeking new ways to survive. In Washington, seven parochial schools were converted to charter schools and opened last September. In New York, the Bloomberg administration and the Diocese of Brooklyn unveiled a proposal in February to convert four Catholic schools to charters, but later abandoned the idea, which required passing state legislation in Albany. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, community leaders and Catholic school parents are trying to create charter schools from scratch.
Here in Newark, the archdiocese has closed dozens of schools as enrollment declined to 40,064 last year, from 58,012 in 2000. Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark, said that it had sought to consolidate parish schools with dwindling classes into regional schools that operated more efficiently; it is opening new regional schools this fall in Elizabeth, Hackensack and Kearny.
“This way we know there will be a school,” he said. “And the responsibility for that school gets shared with surrounding parishes, and it’s not as much of a financial struggle.”
Although enrollment at St. Mary’s and St. Benedict’s has remained steady, the Newark Abbey has come under financial pressure as St. Benedict’s endowment has shrunk by a third, to $19 million, in the economic downturn, reducing income to support the school by a half-million dollars annually. The abbey is also paying back a $20 million loan for the 2001 construction of the building for St. Mary’s, a dorm for 70 St. Benedict’s students and an extensive renovation of five other school buildings.
“Rather than run the risk of losing St. Mary’s down the road,” Father Leahy said, during a meeting last year he suggested renting out the St. Mary’s building to Robert Treat’s founder, Stephen N. Adubato Sr. The two men have close ties: Mr. Adubato’s grandson is a graduate of St. Benedict’s, and Mr. Adubato is a trustee.
Robert Treat Academy, which is named after a founder of Newark, has sought to expand as charter schools are taking off across the city. In 2008, 13 Newark charter schools enrolled 4,877 students, up from 10 schools with 2,493 students in 2003, according to New Jersey’s Education Department.
Robert Treat’s eight-year lease for the Newark Abbey building is being partly covered by more than $770,000 in start-up money from the Newark Charter School Fund, which is financed by national and local charitable groups, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In the meantime, St. Mary’s will return to sharing space with St. Benedict’s, which it did for more than three decades before moving into its own building. St. Mary’s is one of the state’s oldest Catholic schools; it was founded in 1842 with 40 students in a church basement and has grown to more than 200 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The annual tuition is $3,250.
Sister Teresa Shaw, the principal of St. Mary’s since 1992, said that only a handful of families decided not to return this fall because of the move. Also, two former St. Mary’s students enrolled at Robert Treat’s new campus.
“I don’t like losing students and I don’t know what that means for the life of St. Mary’s School,” said Sister Teresa, who added that the school had weathered previous moves and remained as committed as ever to its mission of providing an “excellent education” for the children of Newark.
Robert Treat opened its new campus with 50 kindergarten and first-grade students selected by lottery from more than 200 applications, and plans to add one grade a year until it reaches eighth grade and a total of 225 students in 2016. (The school’s main campus, in the North Ward section, has 450 students).
Inside the red-brick building on a recent morning, the crucifixes had been replaced by bright posters and alphabet letters taped to freshly painted yellow walls. In a kindergarten class, 25 Robert Treat students sat straight in their chairs, with their hands clasped together on their desks — not to say prayers but to quiet fidgety fingers.
“We’re practicing being five-star listeners,” Angela McArthur, the teacher, told the children.
Zion Ruffin, 5, a first grader, said that he switched to the charter school this year after attending kindergarten at a parochial school. He said one change was that prayers were no longer said before lunch. “Here we eat first so we don’t pray,” he said. “It’s fine.”
