Towson Catholic High School - Closing

Closing

The Archdiocese announced on July 7, 2009, that the school would not re-open for the 2009–2010 term due to declining enrollment, which dropped from 244 students in the 2008–2009 school year to only 160 anticipated for 2009–2010. The resulting budget deficit of $650,000 projected for the following year necessitated the school's closure, an Archdiocesan spokesman told the Baltimore Sun. The parish's adjacent Immaculate Conception elementary-middle school is unaffected by the high school's closing and is said to be "thriving", according to the Archdiocese. At the announcement of the venerable school's closing, alumni said its students "got a solid education and learned to appreciate classical musicals as well as a good game of basketball". They praised the small school's personalized instruction and sense of community, "where everyone was popular". The news sparked a large demonstration by placard-wielding parents, students, and alumni in front of the school the next day protesting its closing, prompting a front page headline story, "Anger in Towson", in the Baltimore Sun. The protesters said they had no warning of the school's abrupt closing and told a reporter that greater fund-raising efforts should have been made to save the school. Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien said in a news release that the school's administrators had "expended great energy and countless hours to save the school from this fate."

Amidst continuing demonstrations and meetings with parents and alumni in the aftermath of the closing announcement, a lawsuit was filed by some parents on July 14, 2009, seeking to keep the school open. Alumni also began a fund-raising effort to overcome the school's financial deficit, although a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge declined on July 24 to grant an injunction that would have kept the school open.