Sacred Heart in Terre Haute cuts
middle school due to deficit

By Brandon A. Evans

Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Terre Haute will stop offering a middle school education beginning this fall in an effort to turn around a growing parish deficit.

The debt of Sacred Heart Parish will be about $330,000 by the end of June, which has prompted changes in the way the school is run.

Other cuts also will be made, including the combining of the fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms, the elimination of two teaching positions, changing the principal’s position to part-time and discontinuing cafeteria service.

The hope, said Providence Sister Constance Kramer, interim parish life coordinator, is that the school will better be able to thrive under the new circumstances.

She compared the situation of the school in recent years to a family living in a house that’s too costly.

“When you live in the right size house and you’re paying the right kind of money, you can have a life,” she said.

Also, in the midst of this hard situation, passion for Catholic education has been rekindled among the members of the parish, Sister Constance said.

Still, announcement of the changes have been met by parents with “every normal, rightful feeling you would ever have in this situation,” Sister Constance said.

Upon arriving nine weeks ago, Sister Constance discovered a significant parish deficit that is projected to be approximately $330,000 by the end of this month.

That discovery was quickly taken into account by a School Study Team that had been looking at how the parish school could best operate.

The difficult decision to make the cuts was the unanimous recommendation of the parish leadership.

Even with the changes, the school will not be clear of trouble overnight—it is expected that by the end of next year the debt of the parish will increase by about $70,000.

Currently, the parish is receiving aid from the archdiocese in the form of loans of which the parish must pay back half of the loan amount.

Additionally, the archdiocese is giving the parish extra time to pay off the loans, and in information given to parishioners it was noted that Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein was firmly against closing the school, which is more than 80 years old.

“The leadership of Sacred Heart Parish is extremely grateful to Archbishop Buechlein for his most generous financial package that enables us to continue to offer our elementary … program to the Terre Haute Deanery,” Sister Constance said.

The archbishop also personally addressed parishioners in a letter in which he accepted the recommendations of the parish leadership.

“While archdiocesan resources remain limited, I want you to know that at the archdiocesan level it is our intention to assist the parish in every way we can,” the archbishop wrote.

The parish also will apply for a grant from the Saint Francis Xavier Home Mission Fund, which serves to give financial aid to parishes and schools in the archdiocese that find themselves in situations of need.

Recently, Sister Constance held a sending forth service for those parents and students who were to be going into the middle school grades, and said that she hopes to continue to facilitate healing.

Plus, she said, with the help of God’s Providence, years from now the middle school may become a part of Sacred Heart School again. †