Editor's Note: This story has been updated to make a correction regarding Dr. Bill Murphy, who was originally reported as a financial consultant for the school who helped conduct their audit. Dr. Murphy is actually a member of the Sacred Heart Church finance committee,  who agreed to summarize the results of an audit that was conducted by the Providence Diocese during the meeting on Tuesday night. He did so as an unpaid volunteer, not a consultant.

Around 150 parents, students, faculty, administration, and members of the Providence Diocese gathered in the function room beneath Sacred Heart Church on Taunton Avenue Tuesday night to discuss the impending closure of Sacred Heart School, which was announced via an email sent out to faculty and parents last week.

And although no clear answer emerged from the nearly three-hour meeting about whether or not the school would actually close at the end of the current school year, school administrators did offer what amounted to an educational Hail Mary — a plea to families to make a significant financial commitment towards keeping the school afloat for the next year.

According to an audit that was conducted earlier this month by the Diocese of Providence, the school faces a deficit of around $240,000 for the remainder of the school year, and projects another $200,000 deficit for the coming year. The current cost to operate the school outpaces how much the school earns from tuition by around $3,000 per student.

The bottom line —  according to Dr. Bill Murphy, a member of the Sacred Heart Church finance committee who volunteered to help the school analyze the audit — was that if Sacred Heart could get 100 total students to commit to a supplemental tuition payment of $2,000 (one half due by March 17, the other due by April 1) and then commit to a new tuition cost of $7,900 for the following year, they should be able to keep the school open.

Since many families currently send multiple children to Sacred Heart, that $2,000 supplemental payment goes for each student. So a family sending two kids to Sacred Heart would need to pay $4,000 total over those two payments. Parents were also told that if they paid the supplemental fee and the school was unable to be saved anyway, they would get their money back.

But the school wanted their commitment in writing, on a form that was prepared for the evening’s meeting, and they wanted it quickly. Today (Feb. 27), in fact. Although there was some indication that families might be able to wait until Monday, March 3, the due date wasn’t fully confirmed during the meeting.

“But this alone wouldn’t do it,” Murphy continued. “We’d need 100% participation and involvement from parents and the parish.”

Murphy said that they would need to significantly increase both the school’s enrollment from its current total of 124 students (which includes the daycare program), and their fundraising efforts to build a strong annual fund to enable them to continue.

“The situation looks dire but there is a solution,” Murphy said. “And if we focus our energy on these areas, there is a way forward.”

In the event the school cannot stay open, Assistant Superintendent of Catholic Schools William Klements (who was also at the meeting) said that he had already been in touch with around 10 Catholic schools in the area that would potentially be open to taking students on short notice, even if it’s past the enrollment deadline.

“We can be as flexible as we can be to accommodate Sacred Heart students,” he said.

How did it come to this?
According to school principal, Emily Cabo DaSilva, the school learned back in October of 2024 that they were not bringing in enough revenue from tuition to make payroll.

Twice since then, she said, the school’s pastor, Fr. Silvio De Nard, loaned money from his own finances to make payroll and keep the school afloat.

School administrators then began working with Murphy during the first week of December, 2024. His initial recommendation was to ramp up enrollment and donations. The school put together a marketing effort involving the dissemination of 6,000 postcards throughout the East Bay and southeastern Massachusetts to spread word about the school.

“We had our best open house in years,” DaSilva said, saying that they attracted 25 prospective students as of the January open house.

But then came the full report of the finances, which came back on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) and revealed the drastic existing and looming deficits. According to Murphy, Sacred Heart Church had also been donating funds to the school for three years to make up some of the balance.

“This debt threatens to not only close the school, but close the parish,” Murphy told the crowd.

At that point, Fr. De Nard found himself between a rock and a hard place, as the diocese made it clear that they would not prioritize saving a Catholic school over a Catholic parish.

“We can’t allow a school to take down a parish,” said Michael Lavigne, Secretary for Evangelization and Pastoral Planning for the Diocese of Providence Catholic School Office. “Contrary to what might be said about us, we don’t have a big pot of gold.”

Lavigne said that Rhode Island is an anomaly in the Catholic school world, with 36 schools still in operation, many of which are smaller, without the benefit of large endowments, notoriety or enrollments that enable most Catholic schools to survive at a time where they are closing and consolidating basically everywhere.

“Small schools don’t survive,” he said, adding that Sacred Heart’s relatively low tuition — $5,200 for their 10-month program for Grades 1-8 — created a “perfect storm”.

As the pastor who holds ultimate authority over what happens with the school but also must answer to the diocese, De Nard agreed to the closure of the school last week on Feb. 19.

Emotions among parents were high
Numerous parents spoke up from a place of confusion, anger, and sorrow when given the opportunity to ask questions. Some of them asked how the school could wait so long before alerting the families and faculty of the financial plight that they faced.

“This was last minute and personally, if you couldn’t make payroll in October, that’s when this meeting should have happened,” said Heather Simas, a parent of one student currently enrolled and another who graduated in 2018.

“Right now our home is in a crisis,” said Barbara Ann Thompson, a parishioner at Sacred Heart Church. “And when you’re in a financial crisis at home, that’s when you circle the wagons.”

Many parents spoke up that they would have been happy to assist financially if they had simply been given the opportunity. Others felt betrayed because of the deep love and appreciation they and their children had formed throughout many good years coming to the school.

“It’s frustrating to feel like I developed relationships and invested so much time into this school. I loved it here and I would have done whatever it took,” said one parent who left the meeting before she could be identified. “But now, even if you save it, I’m moving on…The email that was sent, which started off with ‘We waited so long to tell you…’, it felt like a slap in the face.”

Others tried to keep people in a positive mind space, insisting that the school will stay open and pleading with the representatives from the Catholic School Office to give them more time to come up with the money.

“Let us all work together to keep the school open and help us get you to where you need to go,” said Ed Dunn, who also wondered why if the school’s fiscal year ended on June 30, they needed the full slate of supplemental payments from parents by April 1.

But no testimony provided an equal emotional response like the ones provided by students at Sacred Heart themselves.

William Mackenzie, a 7th grader, pointed out how he had formed meaningful relationships with his teachers, and that it would be hard to try to finish school somewhere new when he had spent so much time at Sacred Heart.

“To go to a school like this, it’s like a family,” said 8th grader Edward Dunn. “I love this place. I just hope it can stay open.”