Meghan Grant

Staff Writer

NORTH ARLINGTON — The class of 2017 will be the last to graduate from the 86-year-old Queen of Peace High School. The school, which raised $1 million in just over a month last year to stay open, will be closing its doors at the end of June, the Archdiocese of Newark announced Monday.

Archdiocese officials said the Catholic high school in North Arlington would cease operations as of June 30, due to low projected enrollment and “financial shortfalls.” The K-8 Queen of Peace Grammar School will remain open.

“Those of us who have been involved in Queen of Peace High School — members of the board, the staff and faculty, parents, alumni and other supporters, and the Archdiocese — have weathered challenges to find a way to keep this parish high school operating during this current year,” said Father Michael Donovan. “We have projected over the next three to four years substantial deficits, at or above $1 million. Despite the fact that we did a tremendous job — the alumni, the teachers, the parents, all elements of the community last summer, raising over a million — you just can’t do that every year. It just didn’t seem fair for the students to enroll in the school where the likelihood was even if we were able to stay open that year, and close at the end of next year.”

Queen of Peace had about 47 incoming freshmen enrolled for next year. This year’s undergraduates numbered close to 140.

“At one point, Queen of Peace used to have over 1,100 kids in the building, and that number would sustain our tuition,” said Donovan. “Over a long period of time, that number has declined, to the point where we are in the mid 220s. We can only charge a certain amount of tuition, the parents can only afford so much, and that amount doesn’t cover the cost of education. It is probably four or five thousand below the cost of an education. We have a deficient built in and can do fundraising, but as the numbers shrink, the deficient goes up because there are too few in the building.”

Queen of Peace High School will face a shortfall of more than $1.2 million by the end of June, an amount that can be only partially met through fundraising, Archdiocese officials said.

In addition to the $1 million raised last year, officials of the school noted on its website that it had raised $66,214 toward its $500,000 goal in its Forward Together Matching Campaign. The matching donation was announced in September, and was to be made by a family wanting to remain anonymous.

“Those deficients just can’t be sustained,” said Donovan. “Our fundraising efforts are great, but at some point reality hits. And I think that’s what happened here. The Archdiocese was willing to fund our deficient next year, but then the school would have to close unless there was a dramatic change. Even if we increased our enrollment, the deficient would still be close to a million.”

On May 26, 2016, the Archdiocese announced that the high school would need to raise $1 million by the end of June 2016 to reopen the school in September. The Queen of Peace community stepped up — holding bake sales, bowling nights, can collections, a fundraiser dinner dance and other community events to save the school. A GoFundMe page titled "Save QPHS" set up by the Queen of Peace High School Alumni Association, and big donations from members of the class of 1980, helped the school meet its goal.

After a two-week extension on the deadline, the Archdiocese announced that the school would see a 2016-17 reopening.

In an email to the board of overseers for Queen of Peace, Principal John Tonero and Donovan wrote that the school cannot meet recurring financial obligations such as payroll without “severely harming” the parish or expecting alumni to maintain that level of annual financial support.

The Archdiocese claims to have held “exhaustive series of meetings” over the last four months with parish and school leadership about achieving long-term viability goals.

Donovan explained that the school will hold a fair with representatives of other Archdiocesan high schools next week to help with the students' transition to a new school.

In April, the Archdiocese of Newark announced that basketball powerhouse St. Anthony High School in Jersey City would be closing at the end of the school year.

Existing faculty members will be placed on a “preferred-eligibility list” for positions elsewhere in the Archdiocese.

“We truly appreciate all of the generosity of the alumni and other supporters of Queen of Peace,” said Donovan. “But given that the school was facing a number of years of continuing deficits and challenges to gaining enrollment, we could not expect that alumni would provide the same robust support every year.”

Email: grantm@northjersey.com