And yet another Catholic educational institution in The Bronx will cease to exist this year.
All Hallows High School, which has been facing severe financial difficulties in the past years, has officially announced that this year’s graduating class will be its last as the school will close its doors forever, ending speculation over the past several weeks that its closure was imminent.
In a press release issued this morning, the school’s Board of Trustees listed, “…decades of financial distress and an aging building in need of systemic rehabilitation and upgrades among the reasons for closing the school.”
Founded in 1909 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers and originally located in Harlem on 124th Street, the school moved to its current location on East 164th Street right off the Grand Concourse and blocks away from Yankee Stadium in 1929.
It was also the first school founded in the United States by the Christian Brothers.
The school was originally called All Hallows Institute and included a college school of business and until 1977, an elementary school as well.
According to the All Hallows Board of Trustees, whose members include a diverse range of professionals including those in education and finance, they have been exploring various options for the past three years that would keep the doors to the school open but unfortunately came to the painful decision to shut the school down after the current year.
The school currently has an operating deficit of $1.7 million which is expected to balloon over $2 million by June.
The building itself, which is almost 100 years old, needs major upgrading to all its systems (electrical, plumbing, roof) and modernization throughout.
“It is with a heavy heart that we announce this painful and difficult, but necessary and practical, decision,” said Brother Patrick Moffett, CFC, Chair of the Board of Trustees.
Brother Patrick added, “We continually and collaboratively explored and discussed a number of possibilities to remain operational, but none of them provided a financially viable pathway. The Trustees came to the conclusion that closing the school is the only way forward for the good of our current student population and school personnel.”
Enrollment had dropped significantly since 2018 and the drop was sped up with the COVID-19 pandemic after which the school even went co-ed to help boost enrollment but unfortunately even that boost was not enough given that the cost to educate a student at All Hallows is $11,000 per year leaving a significant gap with the $7,500 yearly tuition per student.
Sister Mary Grace Walsh, ACSJ, Ph.D., Superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of New York, said, “All Hallows High School has been a beacon of faith, excellence, and opportunity in the Bronx for over a century, shaped by the unwavering commitment of the Congregation of Christian Brothers to Blessed Edmund Rice’s mission of service, faith, and education. While the decision to close this remarkable institution is deeply saddening, we honor its legacy of cultivating generations of faith-filled leaders who have positively impacted our communities and world.”
Geoffrey Mullings, a financial analyst at University of Florida Health who also teaches macroeconomics at the university, graduated from All Hallows in 2007 and said, “From faculty to students I think we all had different perspectives on what was wrong and what could be done better. But the communal loss is what’s going to be most profound from this.”
“Many of those teachers then and now were passionate about pedagogy in ways I take into my classroom today and as alums I think despite how dispersed we ever became we all saw AH as our shared canon event, with memories and experiences that kept us all connected decades later,” added Mullings who also served as the school’s student body president during his senior year.
“It’s a shame that ends this year with all the community post-pandemic youths particularly need in their lives,” said Mullings.
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