Powerhouse St. Patrick HS to Close After Academic Year

Corey Fisher, Dexter Strickland, Samuel Dalembert, Al Harrington, Kyrie Irving, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are among the All-Americans that have come out of national powerhouse St. Patrick HS over the years. The Elizabeth, NJ school has been ranked among the best in the nation on a yearly basis. But not even the basketball prestige has been able to salvage the crumbling enrollment statistics and financial woes the school has faced the last few years. Earlier this week, it was announced that the school would shut its doors for good this spring as a result. From the Star-Ledger: “Dwindling enrollment, a desperate financial situation and the lowest SAT scores of the 31 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Newark led the archbishop to decide to close basketball powerhouse St. Patrick High School in Elizabeth, a diocesan official said. St. Patrick, the oldest parochial high school in New Jersey, and its neighbor St. Patrick Academy, a grade 5-8 school, will be among several schools whose closing at the end of this school year will be announced today, archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness said Sunday. Goodness declined to name the other schools but said Archbishop John J. Myers had notified the schools’ officials earlier this month. An announcement was put off until students and parents were told, he said. Despite its nationally known basketball program that included a 26-1 finish in 2010-11, St. Patrick’s failed to recruit enough students to keep enrollment from slipping and closing rumors spread.”