{"id":167542,"date":"2026-03-18T19:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/167542\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:00:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:00:39","slug":"manhattan-students-devastated-about-closing-catholic-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/167542\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan students ‘devastated’ about closing Catholic schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students at a Manhattan Catholic elementary school were \u201cdevastated\u201d to learn that their institution is one of three New York Archdiocese schools<\/a> slated to shut down in June \u2014 leaving families with few other religious options to turn to.<\/p>\n

Incarnation School in Washington Heights broke the news to its community Monday as Catholic institutions continue to suffer plummeting enrollment and skyrocketing tuition. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it was blindsided. They had people coming in and out all year saying we were doing good. And now we\u2019re closing, so it\u2019s horrible,\u201d a fourth-grade teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Post.<\/p>\n

Incarnation School will shut down at the end of the 2026 school year, the Archdiocese of New York announced Monday. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

Students at the school, which serves pre-K through 8th grade, are gutwrenched to leave their friends and teachers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re sad. They\u2019re crying every day. They like it here, they do. They feel safe,\u201d the teacher said. <\/p>\n

The New York Archdiocese announced Monday that Incarnation School and two other Catholic schools <\/a>in the state would permanently shutter at the end of the academic year, while others would merge their populations into a single campus.<\/p>\n

The New York Archdiocese did not reveal the cause of the intense trimming, only saying that administrators \u201cface significant challenges that make it impossible to continue our mission at these locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking. It\u2019s kinda shocking. Incarnation\u2019s like a family,\u201d said Laylaine Rosario. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

The news comes just weeks after the Diocese of Brooklyn, which oversees Kings and Queens counties, announced that\u00a0seven of its schools would shutter\u00a0at the end of the school year \u2014 and one year after seven other Big Apple Catholic schools also closed their doors for good. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking. It\u2019s kinda shocking. Incarnation\u2019s like a family. The teachers are like family here, so they make us feel comfortable. It\u2019s gonna be a big void and it\u2019s gonna be big shoes to fill with the families, they spoil with us here at Incarnation,\u201d said Laylaine Rosario, 31, whose kindergartener has been at the school for three years. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s heartbroken. He\u2019s asking if his teachers are gonna go with him. I told him, \u2018Unfortunately, no, I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 but we have a group chat with the parents, so we\u2019re trying to see what school most of the kids are gonna go to and see if we could keep our children together because they\u2019ve been together for 3 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eight Catholic schools in the Big Apple will shutter in June. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

Incarnation administrators have suggested alternative Catholic schools in the neighborhood that aren\u2019t affected by the closures, but are left with limited choices after several shut down in previous years. <\/p>\n

Many Incarnation families and students aren\u2019t willing to consider public or charter schools. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, not a chance. I went to high school here in New York City. It was the worst public school,\u201d said Vladimir Reynoyso, who has an 8-year-old enrolled at Incarnation. <\/p>\n

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The community is also left scratching its head on the cause of the closure, with most lauding the academics as excellent and worth the $6,175 per student tuition. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy child gets a good education here, not just academic but religious as well and that\u2019s important to you for many reasons \u2014 the structure, the discipline, and when you go to Catholic school, every parent has the same agenda,\u201d said Calvin Soto, 42, parent to a 4th-grade daughter and an Incarnation alumnus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s devastating to me, especially as an alumni. It hurts the community because it\u2019s been a staple of the community for many, many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

One teacher said the students have been \u201ccrying every day\u201d since receiving the news. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

Ryan Seher, 47, agreed, calling the school a \u201cfixture of the community.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe staff is fantastic \u2026 They are just really warm and welcoming all the time. Even the teachers who don\u2019t teach our son, they all know his name and look out for him,\u201d said Seher, whose 3-year-old son is in 3-K.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel really bad for my son because he loves it. He has made a lot of friends. He likes his teachers and now he\u2019s got to start over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catholic institutions have been struggling since the pandemic, with overall enrollment at Big Apple schools plummeting 23% between 2020 and 2024. <\/p>\n

Experts blamed skyrocketing tuition prices and an overall drop in religious-centered education, as well as backlash for the church\u2019s sex abuse scandals<\/a>, as contributing factors to the plunging interest in Catholic schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students at a Manhattan Catholic elementary school were \u201cdevastated\u201d to learn that their institution is one of three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5555,9895,67,75,84,83,57,9,24,197,63,58,2958],"class_list":["post-167542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-archdiocese-of-new-york","tag-catholic-schools","tag-education","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-nyc","tag-us-news","tag-washington-heights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}