THE LAST GRADUATION
June 11, 2008
BY JOHN MOONEY
Star-Ledger Staff
Brilliant in their gold-and-blue mortar boards and robes, the eighth-graders marched into the sanctuary to the burst of camera flashes and proud smiles.
The 15 graduates of Newark’s Blessed Sacrament School, whose commencement Monday was held in the adjoining church of the same name, are a special group from a school that’s had plenty of special students since opening in 1916.
The valedictorian is off to a Connecticut prep school on full scholarship. The point guard on the basketball team will attend the vaunted St. Anthony High School in Jersey City. A third will attend the archdiocese’s Christ the King High School in Newark.
But perhaps most notable, the Class of 2008 is also Blessed Sacrament’s last.
Yesterday, Blessed Sacrament became the latest Catholic school in the state to close, part of a trend in the last decade that has seen a third of the schools close in the Newark Archdiocese alone. In closing, Blessed Sacrament leaves behind more than just melancholy families and staff; it leaves a legacy of helping unify this Clinton Hill community through the decades.
Or as Blessed Sacrament Church’s pastor, the Rev. Anselm Nwaorgu, told the graduating class in his closing words Monday night: “There is a history that goes away with you.”
That history was evident in the school’s final days, as a smattering of former staff and students returned and families spoke of the generations educated inside the modest brick building at Clinton Avenue and Van Ness Place.
“Older cousins, sisters and brothers, more cousins,” said Terrill Reynolds, one of 10 in his extended family to attend the school. “My whole family was here, my whole family.”
The next generation would get but a taste, with the son of Reynold’s fiancee wrapping up his first year of preschool at Blessed Sacrament yesterday.
“He’s doing very well, first-grade level,” said Essie Barton, the boy’s grandmother. “I give credit to the school. And since parents pay for it, they stay alert. … I just wish it was a little cheaper.”
The school was a victim of shifting demographics and the money crunch striking Catholic schools nationwide, particularly the cities.
As more families moved to the suburbs and fewer came to rely on Catholic education, Blessed Sacrament’s enrollment dropped to below 100 this year, a far cry from a peak 10 times that a half-century ago. Just 20 years ago, enrollment topped 500 and the graduating class was more than 40.
In turn, the school faced ever-rising costs, no longer able to rely on nuns who once taught there as a vocation. Tuition climbed to $3,200 last year, with a fundraising requirement on families pushing the figure over $4,000.
“That was really the nail in the coffin,” said Alice Terrell, principal for the last three years. “When that went up, many pulled themselves out. Just couldn’t afford it.”
Ray Cruitt came all the way from North Carolina to see the place he and his four brothers attended one last time.
Standing in the first-floor hallway yesterday, he drifted back to the 1940s and 1950s, remembering school stalwarts of those eras like Sister Clair Christie and Sister Dorothy Ann.
“It’s funny the things you remember,” he said, staring into a prayer room that once served as his kindergarten. “I remember that first day, most of the kids were bawling. But I was saying this is interesting. I just may like this.”
Walking past trophies of the school’s famed drum and bugle corps of the 1950s and 1960s or the championship bowling and baseball teams of earlier years, Cruitt stopped in the office to speak to Susihala Shaw, the school’s secretary/finance manager and mother of two graduates.
He asked if his report card was still on file, and Shaw fished into the cabinets to pull out yellowed index cards for all five Cruitt brothers. Ray’s was filled with A’s and B’s, as well as his parents’ Irish nationality and even the dates of his Baptism and First Communion.
“This is a real treasure,” Cruitt said, choking up a bit. “This means so much.”
Then he stopped to meet Kwandwo Asamoah-Duodu, maybe Blessed Sacrament’s last great act as this year’s school valedictorian. The last of four siblings to pass through the school’s halls, Kwandwo is headed for the prestigious Taft School in Connecticut next year.
Yesterday, as he helped staff clean the school, Kwandwo visited his eighth-grade classroom one last time. Most of the furniture had been cleared out, down to the Crucifix on the wall. Other Catholic schools will have dibs on the desks, while the building will have a new life as a charter school.
Terrell, the principal, came on the public address speaker to give school’s last afternoon prayer. Kwandwo stopped in the middle of the bare room, lowered his head and crossed himself.
“It’s weird,” he said afterward. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com, or (973) 392-1548.
© 2008 The Star Ledger
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