The shoe drops

My cell phone rang when I was on my way to watch my first-grader in her first ever spelldown. It was my husband, already at school. They had gotten the word earlier in the day: Our school would be among those to close in June.

The news did not come as a surprise. We had known we were on the list of likely closures. We knew we had too big of a grant from the archdiocese, and too few students to justify it. We tried reaching out to alumni and community members for more support. We hoped against hope that the quality education, the stellar test scores, the accomplishments of our graduates, the more than 100-year history of Catholic education on that block would somehow be enough to save our school.

It wasn’t, and the last week or so, we were just waiting for the official announcement.

Still, when I walked into the lunchroom and took a seat behind the students, it hurt.

Caroline was the lone first-grader to correctly spell at least 90 words on the 100-word spellathon test and thus qualify for the spelldown. I had to swallow tears as she sat on the stage by herself, with no competition. She spelled her first words in a voice that would not have been audible had not the audience members been nearly holding their breath as they listened. The principal gave her five words to spell, and she did it flawlessly — including the hard one, her school’s name, Resurrection.

At that moment, the gathered students — the whole first through fourth grades — let out a cheer and Caroline beamed. She stepped off stage, making way for the next class, and the competition moved on.

An hour later, as we prepared to start our Brownie meeting, the third-graders ran into the room in tears. Notes were sent home in backpacks; some families had read them before the girls came in for their meeting. Caroline has been at the same school since her first year of prekindergarten; first grade is her fourth year there. Some of the Brownies have been in the same school for six out of the nine years of their lives.

After the meeting, I explained to Caroline why everyone was upset. She had known that the school might close, so it came as a disappointment rather than a shock. "I wish I could go here my whole life," she said.

"I wish so, too," I told her.

Then she started thinking about it, and her next question surprised me. She said she was in the last class her teacher would have at Resurrection, and asked what her teacher would do next year. After all, a teacher must have a class.

As hard as school closings are on families, they are doubly hard on teachers and staff, many of whom have given their careers to schools. It’s hard on longtime parishioners, like our friend who went to the parish school when it was St. Francis Xavier, whose wife — who died a year ago Feb. 24 — went to the school, whose seven children went to the school, two of whose grandchildren still go to the school.

But over Chinese food later, he refused to play the blame game. "We have to think about tomorrow more than yesterday," he said.

That’s what Caroline is doing. In all our talks about this, she has never lost her composure. All she asks is, "Mom, can I go to a Catholic school next year?"