Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River to close: Here's what we know.

FALL RIVER – The Diocese of Fall River announced on Wednesday that Bishop Connolly High School will close permanently at the end of the current school year.

The diocese said financial hardship made it impossible to keep the school running.

"Despite the Diocese’s best efforts to maintain the operational and financial viability of this school, the continued decline in enrollment and substantial financial impact of the pandemic and current economic environment have proven unsustainable," the diocese said in an announcement sent out Wednesday afternoon.

The diocese has spent more than $1 million to sustain Bishop Connolly over the past five years, the announcement said.

“While we sincerely regret having to close Bishop Connolly, our ultimate goal is to strengthen Catholic education in the Diocese for the future,” Daniel S. Roy, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Fall River, said in Wednesday's announcement. “We are committed to helping families transition to other Diocesan Catholic high schools and to make the process as seamless as possible.”

The school, now on Fall River's Elsbree Street, was founded in 1966 by Bishop James L. Connolly as an all-boys school staffed by members of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits. The school become co-ed in 1980. The Jesuits disaffiliated with the school in the 1990s.

The school has a population of 141 students. That number was expected to be lower for the 2023-24 school year, Sandi Duxbury, Vice President of Marketing and Enrollment for the diocese' Catholic School Alliance, said on Thursday.

According to directories put out by the Diocesan Department of Education, enrollment at Bishop Connolly for 1984-1985 was 720 and for 1993-1994 was 385.  Since 2009, the average enrollment has been around 240 students, Duxbury said.

Annual tuition at Bishop Connolly for the current school year is $11,730.

Students from Fall River and 14 other cities and towns currently attend the school.

Coyle and Cassidy closure

The most recent school closures within the diocese were in the spring of 2020, when Coyle and Cassidy Middle School and High School in Taunton and St. Margaret Primary School in Buzzards Bay on Cape Cod shut down permanently. The diocese cited insurmountable budget shortfalls brought on by the pandemic as the reason behind the closures.

Some high school-age students from Coyle and Cassidy transitioned to Bishop Connolly High School after that school closed.

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What options do families have?

There are three other diocesan Catholic high schools in the region: Bishop Stang High School in Dartmouth, Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro and St. John Paul II High School in Barnstable. According to school websites, those schools have high school populations of around 500, 1,100, and 251 students, respectively. The 2023-24 academic year tuition, according to the schools' websites, will cost the following at area schools: Stang $12,400; Feehan $13,975 and St. John Paul $13,700.

Bishop Connolly held Zoon meetings between school leadership and families on Wednesday night to address issues like admissions to other diocesan high schools, tuition and financial aid, and transportation.

Current Bishop Connolly students will have the option to transfer to Bishop Stang or Bishop Feehan in Attleboro. The diocese has said Connolly students will be able to transfer their 2023-24 tuition rates and financial aid to these schools.

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What could happen to the Bishop Connolly campus?

Bishop Connolly boasts a large gymnasium, as well as athletic fields on its 60-acre Elsbree Street campus.

"No plans have been made for the building. We are focusing on the care and concern of our families, faculty and staff," Duxbury said on Wednesday.

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Bishop Connolly High School is located across the street from B.M.C. Durfee High School, which cut the ribbon on a brand new, $263 million building in 2021. It’s also located down the street from Bristol Community College’s sprawling 65-acre campus.

What's next for Bishop Connolly staff?

"There are openings throughout the Diocese at other Catholic schools so there are opportunities for faculty and staff to continue to work in Catholic education if they choose," Duxbury said.

Bishop Connolly High School alumni

Among some of the better known graduates of Bishop Connolly High School are former Fall River mayors Ed Lambert, John Mitchell and now-convicted Jasiel Correia II, and Broadway actor John Michael Dias, who is most known for his touring role as Frankie Valli in the hit musical "Jersey Boys."

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Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III, a Dartmouth High School graduate, held his latest inauguration ceremony at Bishop Connolly less than a month ago.

Who was Bishop Connolly?

The school was named after Bishop James Louis Connolly, a Fall River native and one of the most important local figures in the Catholic Church. Born in 1894, Connolly was educated at B.M.C. Durfee High School, attended seminary in Washington, D.C., and was ordained in 1923. After decades of his career spent in Minnesota, he returned to Fall River in 1945, where he served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church until 1951, when he succeeded the late Bishop James Cassidy as the fourth bishop of the Fall River diocese.

Connolly supervised a period of remarkable growth for the Catholic church in the Fall River diocese. He oversaw the establishment of the Anchor newspaper – launched in 1957 and still published today – and the building of 33 churches and 17 schools. Among those schools was the high school named for himself.

Connolly resigned as the Fall River diocese's bishop in 1970, but was bishop emeritus of the diocese until his death in 1986.

Timeline of Connolly history

October 1965: The diocese announces the establishment of a new Catholic high school to be called Bishop Connolly High School.

Sept. 7, 1966: Bishop Connolly’s inaugural class begins classes. It consists of 120 freshmen, all boys, and is staffed by Jesuit fathers. With no building yet complete, the students are housed in an addition constructed onto St. William’s Church, in Fall River’s Maplewood neighborhood, at Stafford Road and Chicago Street.

Sept. 6, 1967: After a year of construction, the diocese’s high school building is complete, built on a parcel of land down a wooded lane off Elsbree Street. The building is designed to accommodate 800 students, with 225 students starting classes that year. At the building’s official dedication a month later, the Providence Journal wrote at the time, Connolly “said he is a "professional optimist" and that he is sure the high school would produce young men "able to handle themselves well in a world full of problems.”

1969: Bishop Connolly absorbs the students and faculty at Monsignor Prevost High School, a Catholic high school that existed in Fall River's Flint neighborhood from 1927 to 1968, when that building was destroyed by fire.

1980: After briefly considering becoming co-ed in the mid-1970s, Bishop Connolly starts admitting girls when Bishop Gerrard High School, an all-girls Catholic school, closes.

2003: Though the school had a long history of offering student athletics like baseball and soccer, the school fields its first ever Cougars football team.

2016: The school marks its 50th year by undertaking a $1.4 million fundraiser, intended partially for scholarships and also to make significant improvements to the campus including science laboratories, the gymnasium, theater and library.

Greg Sullivan and Dan Medeiros contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Bishop Connolly High closing: Diocese of Fall River cites finances