Stuart Hall High School: new life after a month of drama
Stuart Hall High School, the all-boys Catholic school at Pine and Octavia Streets, in recent weeks has experienced its own death and resurrection.
In early June, word spread rapidly through the school community that a move was afoot to shut down the school because of declining enrollment and dwindling finances. Supporters quickly mobilized their resources and their checkbooks. By the end of the month, they had raised more than $3 million to solve the immediate financial problems and put forth a long-term plan to save the school that was unanimously endorsed by its board of trustees.
The first hint of trouble came in an anonymous email on Friday, June 4, the night before the school’s graduation ceremonies.
“When I heard this news, I was floored,” graduating senior James Holt wrote in an email to the trustees. “It was as if the walls of my house and of my heart came tumbling down. My friends and I rushed to discuss the issue online . . . until the early morning hours of our graduation day.”
School leaders decried a “flood of misinformation” and said no decision had been made.
The following Monday, hundreds of supporters came together to voice their determination that the school continue. A steering committee of parents was created to raise money and develop a plan. “Among us are past, present, and incoming Stuart Hall families,” they wrote, plus “a chief financial officer, a CPA, an attorney, three educators, a marketing executive and deeply experienced non-profit volunteers.”
A public meeting was set for later in the week, on June 10, and more than 100 people volunteered to help the steering committee research and write a plan and raise funds. Success was within sight by the time a second public meeting to preview the plan was held two weeks later on June 24.
“Talk about community — wow!” exulted Skip Olger, the Stuart Hall parent who led the steering committee’s finance subgroup, to a cheering convocation of students, parents and teachers in the school’s gymnasium. Olger said the school needed $3½ million over the next four years, and had already raised $3 million “as of about 2:30 this afternoon.” He said the funds raised would keep the school financially sound while enrollment is gradually increased so that tuition — now $32,500 per year — again covers expenses. For long-term viability, he said, “It gets down to enrollment.”
Enrollment at the school has declined from 49 to 31 students in the most recent entering class, said parent Bill Campbell, who headed the steering committee’s admissions and marketing subgroup. But he said the school’s key market — upper income households — is expected to grow by 20 percent during the next five years. He said the school is uniquely attractive because it offers both small classes and “values-based instruction.”
Campbell recommended that the school for boys be marketed as “a co-ed school with single-sex classrooms.” Stuart Hall is part of the Schools of the Sacred Heart, which also operates the Convent grammar and high schools for girls on Broadway, as well as the next-door Stuart Hall for Boys.
“The two high schools need to hold hands,” Campbell said. “We need to point out that we are a co-ed school.”
Steering committee chair Dan McLaughlin called his group’s recommendations “a responsible and achievable plan for overall sustainability” that would be presented to the board of trustees the next day.
“The mismanagement of the board got us here,” one parent complained, to widespread applause, when questions were invited. Yet it was clear by the end of the meeting that the trustees were likely to find favor with the parents’ plan.
And they did. On Friday, June 25, the board of trustees voted unanimously to approve the plan. In a statement, board chair John Linehan and Gordon Sharafinski, director of the Sacred Heart schools, saluted the parents, teachers and students who had “worked tirelessly to turn a challenging situation into a wonderful opportunity.”
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