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Sacred Heart High School in Waterbury to close at the end the school year

The school currently serves 1,587 students and their families in Waterbury and the surrounding towns.

WATERBURY, Conn — A school in Waterbury announced it plans to close doors for good on Thursday.

Sacred High School leaders said it cannot afford to continue educating. There was an outpouring of emotional messages from the school community following the announcement.

“Its a very diverse small school,” said Waterbury Alderman George Noujaim, an alumnus of Sacred Heart. “It brings a lot into the community, especially in it’s location and it’s going to be a great loss.”

Noujaim, who has a son in middle said he planned to attend the high school but now is sad and unsure.

Noujaim felt completely heart broken, sad and shocked.

“This is new to me that obviously enrollment has been down,” Noujaim said. “It’s going to be a big loss for the community just on the private school sector and then obviously the kids that are currently enrolled in school. Once again we have to worry about where our kids are going to go.”

School leaders sent an announcement to school community members Thursday and said how difficult the decision was for everyone involved. The president of the high school took time to make an emotional video to further explain the school's difficult decision.

“Over the last two years, we have lost over 100 students, and our projection for the coming year was that we would lose more,” said Eileen Reagan, President of Sacred Heart High School, in Waterbury, as she held back tears.

She said they always had a steady enrollment.

“We have reached the sad and inevitable conclusion that Sacred Heart High School will have to close its doors at the end of this current school year,” she said. “I know that you share with me the difficulty and the emotional drain this is, in making a decision such as this, for everyone involved at Sacred Heart High School, our passionate students, our faculty and staff, and certainly generations of families and alumni that have helped to shape what Sacred Heart High School stands for.

The school currently serves over 1500 students in Waterbury and the surrounding towns.

“We certainly are a school that has touched tens of thousands of lives from the greater Waterbury community,” said President Reagan. “My heart, my blessings go out to each of you, our beloved families.”

Noujaim said he would like for the archdiocese to get involved.

“Put some money towards it and help with whatever the needs are because it’s very viable for the community,” he said. “I feel it’s vitally important that Sacred Heart maintains its Catholic education.

The school will work with current students as they transition to other schools for next year and will continue to explore ways current upper-classmen can finish their schooling at Sacred Heart.

In a letter to the Sacred Heart High School family, Vicar for education Father Michael Whyte and School President Eileen Regan announced the school would be closing at the end of the school year due to the decline in enrollments. 

The officials said the decline in enrollment was created by the decrease in school-age population over the past several years. 

"This is a profoundly difficult, emotionally trying situation for everyone involved. Sacred Heart High School has passionate students, faculty, and staff, and generations of area families have shaped their minds, bodies, and souls within its four walls for nearly a century," said officials in the letter. 

Students and faculty will have options to "smoothly" move to other Catholic schools in the area. The school currently serves 1,587 students in Waterbury and the surrounding towns. 

The letter finished by praising the school and the people who attended or worked in it: 

'Sacred Heart High School has always been so much more than books, bricks, and mortar. Sacred Heart has been the cornerstone of families and every community that our administrators, teachers, staff, coaches, and alumni have touched. Just as it does in our own hearts, we will ensure that the legacy of this storied high school endures, and we give thanks to God for the countless blessings that have emanated from our school family."

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