Final bell tolls for two schools

There were some long faces as children left St. Matthias on Tuesday.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- This week marks the end of classes for area parochial schools, but for two of them, the end-of-the-school-year closing will be permanent.
St. Matthias School at 2800 Shady Run Road and Immaculate Conception School, 810 Oak St., are saying goodbye to their pupils for the last time.
Declining enrollments were cited as the reasons for the closures.
Pupils at St. Matthias actually had their last day of classes Tuesday, although they were to report to school this morning.
The entire school was headed to Kennywood Park this morning for a day of fun to mark the end of the school year and the permanent closure, said Principal Cheryl Jablonski.
The school held its awards day as well as a school-parish dinner Friday.
There were some long faces as people waited to pick up children Tuesday afternoon.
"I'm sad to see it closing," said Deanna Repko of Judson Avenue, whose daughter, Rachael, is a fourth-grader at St. Matthias and has been at the school since enrolling in kindergarten.
Her father, Raymond Repko, also went to St. Matthias as a boy.
Other comments
Becky Dee of Cornell Avenue moved to Youngstown from New Hampshire three years ago and chose St. Matthias for her children because friends recommended it and it was "in my backyard."
"It's an excellent school. It's sad -- a lot of good people here," she said.
Daughters Courtney, 5, and Stacey, 4, are enrolled in preschool at St. Matthias. They'll go to Holy Family School next year, Deanna Dee said.
"It was just a really nice school," said Deborah Williams of Glenaven Avenue as she waited to pick up her granddaughter, Todai Collier, a fourth-grader.
"She loved it here. We loved it here," Williams said.
"You didn't have to worry about your child in school," she said.
Immaculate Conception pupils had their graduation Tuesday but were to be back in class today and Thursday, which will be their last day.
Several of the dozen eighth-grade graduates who filed into Immaculate Conception Church on U.S. Route 422 Tuesday have attended the school since they entered kindergarten. Their younger siblings, however, will have to attend school elsewhere.
LeChelle Irizarry watched with a smile and camera clicking away as her son, Arvin, graduated from the school but said she is sad her daughter, who is in the sixth grade, will not complete the eighth grade at Immaculate Conception. Irizarry said her younger child will attend Catholic school in Campbell next school year.
History
With 12 graduating eighth-grade pupils, Sister Charlotte Italiano, principal, said the class is one of the smallest in the school's history. She said watching the pupils graduate evoked a array of emotions.
"It's just mixed feelings," she said. "We have to close because of the lack of enrollment. This is bittersweet. We are very, very sad."
St. Matthias, which opened in 1917, had as many as 400 pupils in the late 1960s, but enrollment dropped to 124 last year and was down to only 61 this year in prekindergarten through the eighth grade.
Immaculate Conception was opened in 1882 by the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown. It had more than 700 pupils in the 1960s, but the number was down to just 63 this year in kindergarten through the eighth grade.
Low enrollments meant financial difficulties for the schools, despite fund-raising efforts by their parishes. In the end, the church pastors and the parish councils felt it best to close the two schools, and the diocese agreed.