Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 6/10/2016
SPRINGFIELD – A new Catholic high school may yet rise on Surry Road. On May 18, the Springfield Planning Board approved the site plan for Pope Francis High School submitted by Bishop Mitchell Rozanski and the Diocese of Springfield.
According to Phillip Dromey, deputy director of planning for the Office of Planning and Economic Development for the city of Springfield, the eight-member board gave the plan unanimous approval, with certain conditions regarding the use of the property for a school and the installation of exterior lighting and signage in a residential neighborhood.
“This project falls under the educational exemption for residential neighborhoods,” Dromey said. “Any other use would have to apply for a zoning change.”
Mark Dupont, chief executive for Catholic communications for the Diocese of Springfield called the site plan approval “a great next step” in the return of Catholic higher education to the city.
“We are pleased that we have cleared the initial site plan approval but there are still governmental oversight steps that we need to complete before any work can commence,” Dupont said. “People are understandably anxious to see progress on the site but building a large facility such as a school involves much planning and coordination among various parties.
“The building committee overseeing this project is in final stages of preparing to put much of the individual contractor work out to bid,” Dupont continued. “We remain hopeful for a fall groundbreaking with work commencing shortly thereafter.”
The neighborhoods abutting Surry and Wendover Roads has been nervously awaiting this next step since Cathedral High School and St. Michael’s Academy Middle School were destroyed by a F3 tornado that swept through the city on the afternoon of June 1, 2011.
An initial promise by then Bishop Timothy McDonnell to rebuild Cathedral immediately following the incident was buoyed in March of 2014 when former Cathedral teacher turned U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal secured $29.8 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency monies – nearly 75 percent of the estimated cost to reconstruct the school.
However, when Rozanski replaced McDonnell in August of 2014, the fate of the former powerhouse Catholic high school came into jeopardy. Years of increasing tuition costs – fueled by a dwindling pool of religious who chose teaching as their calling and the need for lay teachers – coupled with declining enrollments prompted by the rise in public Charter schools offering equally rigorous curriculums at no charge to parents, forced Rozanski to turn a critical eye on the rebuilding of Cathedral on the ravaged site.
He appointed Monsignor John Bonzagni of the diocesan planning office to head a committee to study the feasibility of rebuilding Cathedral High School. At the time Mayor Domenic Sarno expressed shock and outrage that the diocese would consider abandoning Catholic higher education in the city.
In February of 2015, Rozanski announced that, due to declining enrollments at both Cathedral High School – which since the tornado had operated out of a former elementary school in Wilbraham – and Holyoke Catholic High School, located in Chicopee, the two remaining diocesan-operated Catholic high schools in the greater Springfield area would be merged into one regional Catholic high school. In June of 2015, Rozanski said an advisory board of students, teachers and parents from the two high schools had chosen the name Pope Francis High School for the new merged educational facility, which was to be constructed on the former site of Cathedral High School.
Got a comment about this story? Go to http://speakout.thereminder.com and let us know.