Help Save Our Lady of Angels, Bay Ridge!

The Brooklyn Diocese has been recommended that Our Lady of Angels School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn be closed at the end of the school year. It is not clear if this is due to the low enrollment or inadequate funding.

Over the last couple of years great strides have been made to increase funding to the school and it has begun to actually make a profit. In addition to its own income stream, a very generous benefactor left money to the school. This has made OLA one of the few schools not reliant upon the Diocese in funding its operations. And while enrolments could be higher, current enrolments are good and there are plans in play to increase them.

We are putting together a petition to try to save our children’s school which is a wonderful mainstay of the neighborhood. Don’t allow an almost 90 year old Bay Ridge institution be swallowed by the modern world! The decision to close OLA is NOT final; we still can convince them that we love this school and it should stay open. Please sign this petition as gesture of hope and goodwill towards the OLA community.

Please forward this link to ANYONE you think is interested in this cause, family members, alumni, friends and anyone else that loves and cares about your children and you.

Over the last 90 years, children of Bay Ridge have attended OLA. It is a small community within a community - a village of people from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. We have come to love each other and have created a beautiful and peaceful environment for our children to learn in. It is a modern, yet nurturing, learning experience with small class sizes, reliable yet comparative academic curriculum and caring teachers. The students at OLA become life long friends as well as neighbors.

OLA is part of Bay Ridge’s history and should not become another statistic of current economic crisis. It has a life and a purpose. It’s a safe and warm place of learning within a chaotic world. It teaches our children to be kind and productive. It gives working parents a secure and loving family to leave their children with all day while they are away at work. It is not JUST a school; it is like a second home. If the school closes, our children will have to leave each other and be separated into other schools, other classes and other lifestyles. They will all have a difficult time of adjustment maybe even so much that it affects some of them for a long time to come.

With the school closing, there is the probability that other things will change as well:

ß The after school and early drop off programs parents rely on may not be available in other schools.
ß The sports and theater camps through the school breaks and summer will have to eventually find another location so that even parents without children in OLA will have to travel further and/or find other camps for their children.
ß The CCD (religious education), where will it go?
ß What about the Boy and Girl scout troops?
ß And other community groups that meet at OLA?
ß The surrounding area schools will become over crowded and overwhelmed with all of the extra students.
ß The families of children who go to new schools may join the parishes of those new schools reducing the congregation of the OLA Church.
ß The OLA teachers will finds themselves out of work at a time of high unemployment.

The bottom line is that closing OLA will have a domino effect. It will effect everyone not just the students who go to OLA.

We ask “why make the lives of our children, parents and neighbors harder in an already unsteady world?”.

So, please take a few minutes out of your busy day to support us in our attempt to save a wonderful and important part of our community and our children’s lives! Sign our partition now!

Thank you so very much.







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Added by OLAPARENT @ January 15, 2009, 7:48 am
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Keep up to date with what is happening at http://www.olabayridge.net

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Added by OLAPARENT @ January 25, 2009, 12:51 pm
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PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE ABOVE WAS WRITTEN IN HASTE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE. IT WAS WRITTEN ON THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND BEFORE WE WERE INFORMED ABOUT THE DETAILS CONCERNING THE CLOSURE. THIS PETITION WAS SET UP BY AN OLA PARENT AND WAS NOT BY THE SCHOOL, PARISH OR ANY OTHER GROUP THAT IS AFFILIATED WITH THE SCHOOL. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY CONFUSION THIS MAY HAVE CAUSED. THERE IS A PROPOSAL SET IN PLACE TO HELP KEEP THE SCHOOL OPEN AND THERE ARE MANY OTHER IDEAS BEING LOOKED INTO.

ALTHOUGH THE PETITION CLEARLY STATES IT IS A POSSIBILITY THAT WE MAY LOSE THE PROGRAMS THAT RUN OUT OF THE SCHOOL, THIS WAS NOT ACCURATE. IF THE SCHOOL CLOSES THESE PROGRAMS WILL REMAIN.

WE THANK EVERYONE FOR THEIR SUPPORT, PRAYERS AND PASSION FOR OLA SCHOOL AND PLEASE CONTINUE TO SIGN THE PETITION AS SUPPORT TO THE SCHOOL.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!!!!

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Added by OLAPARENT @ February 13, 2009, 5:06 am
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OLA to become Holy Angels Academy in September 2009!

The Diocese of Brooklyn announced on 02/12/2009 that the Bishop had accepted the alternative proposal offered by the leadership of Our Lady of Angels School (Bk), seeking the conversion of these schools into independent Catholic academies. It is expected that these two new academies will open in September, 2009.

We thank everyone who has signed this petition!

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