By David Eck

SPRINGFIELD DEANERY - The Urbana campus of Catholic Central School will close after this school year because of a dwindling number of students, school officials recently said.

The campus - the former St. Mary School - is housing 46 students this school year, a decrease of three from the 2006-07 school year. School officials had previously set a benchmark of 54 students at the campus this year in order for it to remain open, said Brian Grimone, chair of the school's board of trustees.

"It was felt that 54 was achievable because you're looking at six grades up there," Grimone said. "You're looking at one extra student per grade (from the 49 students in 2006-07) to keep it going."

The campus has a staff of less than a dozen, and Grimone said he does not know if the closing will result in any job losses. It houses grades K-6.

Catholic Central also consists of a junior/senior high school and two other elementary campuses, all in Springfield.

Catholic Central opened as a preK-12 school for the 2005-06 school year as Catholic education in the Springfield Deanery was unified. As part of the plan, four parish elementary schools - St. Teresa, St. Bernard and Holy Trinity in Springfield, and St. Mary in Urbana - were closed and reopened as part of Catholic Central with three elementary campuses. The elementary campuses were located in the former St. Teresa, St. Bernard and St. Mary buildings.

The seventh- and eighth-grade classes from the parish schools were merged into the high school the previous school year.

When the school board of trustees formed in 2005, it began monitoring enrollment and finances at the elementary level, Grimone said.

"With Urbana, it has really been kind of a year-by-year process," he said. "If you looked at the cost to educate a student up there, it was significantly higher than it was at the other two campuses."

Another issue compounding the situation at Urbana was that grades 4-6 only had 12 students total, who were being taught in one classroom, Grimone said.

"It was certainly a challenge for the teacher," he said. "Any educator can look at that and say that's a difficult environment to teach."

The situation created some social issues for the students and somewhat limited teachers in their ability to provide educational resources to the students.

Even with the Urbana closure, there is the possibility the school will continue to consolidate its elementary campuses in the future, Grimone said. There is no timetable, though.

Despite the planned closing of the Urbana campus, which has left some parents angry, Catholic Central officials hope that parents will send their children to the school's Springfield campuses.

"We'll do everything that we humanly can to make that transition work for them," Grimone said. "At this point in time, the parents up there are very angry and upset. We're not hearing at this point in time from any parent that is willing to send their student down here."