As Immaculate Conception closes its doors, students will carry memories to new schools

For one final time, the halls of Immaculate Conception High School were filled.

They were crowded with faculty, staff and students. There were also alumni, including those who may not have walked these halls in decades. The same halls that, just a few weeks ago, were witness to four final clap-outs for the 136 students who made up the school’s final class.

The Catholic school, founded in 1915, closed its doors on Friday after 108 years in service.

“I do feel very strongly, and I always will, no matter what, that Immaculate Conception was a very special place, and will always be through its legacy of students and alums,” Jessica Cutrona, head of the Lodi school, said in a recent interview. “While there's so many great schools out there, there truly will never be another school like Immaculate Conception.”

The institution is the latest to fall victim to what some describe as a shrinking Catholic education system in New Jersey. Those who ran Immaculate Conception announced its closure in March, pointing to a “perfect storm of factors” that led to the school’s collapse: the global pandemic, declining enrollment from feeder schools and costly upgrades to the school’s facilities.

The announcement was met with shock and grief from the tight-knit community. Many described the school’s closure as a monumental loss to North Jersey — one that will inevitably change the face of high school sports next year, with dozens of athletes dispersing to new high school programs across the region.

Cutrona said the past three months were about preparing her students for life after Immaculate Conception.

“Everything has just been about the students,” she said. “That's what my goal has always been about — how can we inspire and empower these young women to always just hold their heads high and persevere.”

Most students are transferring to other Catholic institutions in the area, such as Mary Help of Christians Academy in North Haledon, St. Mary High School in Rutherford, Paramus Catholic High School, DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne and Mount St. Dominic Academy in Caldwell. Some students will attend their hometown public high schools, Cutrona said.

Shrinking options for Catholic education

While options remain for families who prefer a Catholic education, that landscape in New Jersey is changing.

In 2017, the Archdiocese of Newark announced that Queen of Peace High School in nearby North Arlington would close. In 2015, Saint Elizabeth University in Florham Park, once an all-women's college, approved the decision to become a coed institution for the fall of 2016.

The pandemic furthered altered the landscape. In 2020, the Archdiocese of Newark announced that nine Catholic elementary schools and one high school would close at the end of the academic year. The pandemic “further weakened the economic position of the schools and other ministries,” officials said.

“We hear almost every day that other schools closing across the country are Catholic schools,” Cutrona said. “There just, in my opinion, have been way too many. I think we should be building more schools instead of closing them.”

And though enrollment at Immaculate Conception was projected to increase slightly next year, the rate of that increase was not enough to sustain the future of the school.

Small school, large family

Immaculate Conception was unique in that it was small — averaging between 120 and 200 students — and an all-girls school. The school’s intimacy attracted alum Dana Regan, and many of those factors made it stand out from other Catholic schools.

Regan remembers walking down its halls and every person knowing each other by name — no matter if a student was a freshman or senior. “It’s a small school, but a large family," Regan said. "No matter if you graduated last year or 20 years ago, it's still the same feeling.”

Though Regan graduated in 1988, she kept strong ties to her alma mater. Regan is a member of the school’s board of trustees, and her daughter graduated from Immaculate Conception in 2021.

While at Immaculate, Regan was a cheerleader and played softball. The school’s offerings back then were minimal compared with what students were offered today, she explained. “We were not the powerhouse that they are now,” she said with a laugh.

Powerhouse in athletics

In the last decade, Immaculate Conception’s sports programs experienced great success.

Some teams became powerhouse programs under the late Jeff Horohonich, a longtime basketball and softball coach in New Jersey who had a record-setting stint at Immaculate Conception. Horohonich, also a former athletic director at the school, led Immaculate Conception's softball team to seven Non-Public B titles in a row between 2013 and 2019 — a state record.

One of his former stars, Sarah Piening, is the only girl in state history to pitch in four state finals and win all four. She was the school’s most recent head coach.

The late Horohonich also took Immaculate Conception to three straight Tournaments of Champions, the first school ever to appear in the event three times. The team lost in the tournament final in 2017 to Immaculate Heart Academy, 5-4, in extra innings.

On the basketball court, Horohonich led Immaculate Conception to its first sectional basketball title in 2015. That year, the Blue Wolves lost to IHA in the Bergen County title game. The 2015 team was led by Samantha Fuehring, who was drafted by the WNBA before being cut. She now plays in Europe.

This year, Immaculate Conception athletes had 12 teams to choose from, said Dale Fava, the school’s athletic director. About 90% of the school population played sports, he estimated, and teams were thriving.

Offerings included non-traditional sports, like wrestling and flag football. In 2019, the school founded the first all-girls private school wrestling team in the state. In its first year, the flag football team rostered 21 girls, making it one of the school's largest teams.

Among many highlights this year, Immaculate Conception senior Jenna Filieri became Bergen County's first two-time state champ in girls wrestling. She was also named North Jersey's wrestler of the year for girls wrestling.

“The way we finished out the year, we finished it up really, really strong,” said Fava. “Just like the way we said we would when we heard the school was going to shut down.”

Next year, several Blue Wolves will be heading to new sports programs. Many are even joining teams as a cohesive unit. According to Fava, more than 20 girls are heading to Paramus Catholic, where Fava has landed as the new dean of students. Former head basketball coach Jiovanny Fontan will be the head coach for girls basketball next year at DePaul, where some Immaculate Conception athletes are also heading.

The softball coaching staff also landed on their feet with plans to head to St. Mary in Rutherford, where a “majority” of the team will go, according to Piening. Some of the volleyball team is heading to Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington Township, Fava said.

“I think it's God's gift, you know, giving our student athletes to these other schools, and I think they're gonna go on and I think they're gonna compete hard against each other,” Fava said. “A lot of our teams did stay together, which is great, and I love to see that. They did that on their own.”

The influx of Immaculate Conception players to other teams will surely affect competition, he added. “It's going to make competition better for those schools,” Fava said. “For some athletic programs, it's going to help. In some schools that may have been down, this is going to help boost their numbers.”

About the memories and relationships, not the trophies

The school's sports legacies will also live on through trophies and sports gear that some athletes and their families were able to take home, Fava said. At a recent awards dinner, some of the trophies served as centerpieces, with players from those teams able to take the hardware home. Athletes were also able to take home extra Blue Wolves gear.

But it’s not just about the championships or league titles won, Fava said.

“Those accomplishments of our student athletes and championships won, I'll always remember those,” he said. “But it's not about the trophies. The trophies are good, but they become dust holders. It’s all about the memories and relationships that we built through the time at IC.”

And that time at Immaculate Conception has culminated with what Fava describes as the longest three months of his life.

Each day has been emotional. He recalled each clap-out that faculty and staff had for the final classes a few weeks back.

“As emotional as it was, you could really see how much the administration, staff and just the students loved it,” he said. “It's just really sad to see it go.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Immaculate Conception students to carry memories to new schools