When Preston High School in the Bronx announced in February that it was closing, it seemed to many that it was just another in a long list of urban Catholic schools that lacked the money and enrollment to survive. Not even this girls’ school with a famous alumna (Jennifer Lopez, class of 1987) seemed immune to a trend that has shuttered scores of parochial schools in the last few decades.
But to Preston alumnae, current students and their families and some staff, something seemed off. Preston was not like those other schools. It was financially sound, and enrollment was close to 100 percent of the target number of roughly 370 students. What’s more, it has a powerful and organized group of former students that has refused to accept the explanation for the closure given by the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, the Roman Catholic religious order that owns the school. Now Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has been drawn into the fray.
Ms. James presided over a boisterous public hearing on Tuesday to investigate the murky circumstances around the decision to close Preston at the end of this school year. A crowd of about 500 people packed the large auditorium at Lehman, another Bronx high school, delivering hours of testimony along with loud cheers and numerous standing ovations.
“This is a call to action for other schools and other folks who find themselves in similar positions to get organized and start preparing,” Jackeline Stewart-Hawkins, Preston class of 2002, said in an interview.
Ms. Stewart-Hawkins is part of a wide-ranging effort by graduates, staff, families of students and elected officials to keep the school open.
Amanda Farías, the majority leader of the New York City Council, who graduated from Preston High School in 2007, was one of the people who urged Ms. James to step in.
In an interview last week, Ms. Farías called the school a “cornerstone of the community” and said she was mystified by the decision to close it, given its relatively solid financial standing and high enrollment. She accused the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, which owns the two buildings that house the school, of not being transparent.
“They either don’t want to keep educating young women of color in the Bronx, despite the school being one of the places that has successfully done that and created people like me,” Ms. Farías said, “or they just want to completely eliminate their arm in the education space and don’t want to leave a legacy behind them.”
She also spoke at the hearing, along with Vanessa Gibson, the Bronx borough president, and Kristy Marmorato, the City Council member whose district includes the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx that is Preston’s home. They all condemned the closure.
Ms. James, who has the authority to ask the courts to take action, appeared sympathetic and promised a “thorough analysis” of the case. Her office is authorized to look into how nonprofit organizations like Preston conduct business.
“We want to make sure every requirement was followed,” Ms. James said.
The Sisters of the Divine Compassion did not have a representative at the hearing but submitted a letter that was read into the record. The order said in a statement on Wednesday that it had listened to all the speakers and would cooperate with the attorney general’s inquiry.
With an average age of 83, its members say they can no longer govern the school or be landlords, and that they need to prepare for retirement. In a video released to explain the decision, several of the organization’s representatives said that the school’s enrollment, although steady now, is 34 percent lower than in 2012 and that the buildings are old and in need of expensive repairs. They criticized what they called a misinformation campaign and said that they had been “betrayed” by school administrators since the decision was made.
“I would have hoped that somehow the Preston community would be better dealing with it than they are,” Sister Susan Becker said in the video. In its letter to the school community, the group also cited financial instability and “changing demographics,” a phrase that was brought up repeatedly at Tuesday’s hearing.
“The demographics have changed,” said Jennifer Connolly, the school’s principal, a vocal opponent of the closure who received a standing ovation when she was introduced. “I don’t know why that’s a bad thing.”
Shortly after the decision to close was announced, The Bronx Times reported that the Bally’s Foundation offered $8.5 million to the Sisters of the Divine Compassion for the two buildings and offered to allow the high school to remain with rent of $1 per year on a 25-year lease. The foundation is the charitable arm of the gambling company that seeks a casino license in New York.
The order rejected the offer with little explanation. Many Preston alumnae wonder whether the order received a better offer that requires the building to be delivered vacant.
“That’s conjecture,” said Andrea Donkor, who graduated from Preston in 1999 and is a former member of its board of trustees. “But we cannot make sense of it otherwise.”
In a statement to The New York Times, the Sisters of the Divine Compassion said that in their negotiations, despite the promise of a 25-year lease, Bally’s would not commit to long-term operating support for the school. “Bally’s was also unwilling to commit that the property would continue to be used as a school,” the statement continued, “or that Bally’s would not seek to monetize the property in the future.”
Soo Kim, the chairman of Bally’s, disputed that assertion and said in an interview that the offer still stands, and it also includes an option for the school to buy back the buildings at any point at the same price, adjusted for inflation. He added that as long as Bally’s has its golf course in Throgs Neck, “the school will still exist.”
“It’s a part of our company’s philosophy to reinvest in the communities,” Mr. Kim said. “We don’t know why they rejected the offer.”
The Sisters of the Divine Compassion (also known as the Religious of the Divine Compassion, or R.D.C.) was founded in 1886 to care for and educate underprivileged children; it opened the school in 1947.
Ms. Donkor and her sister, Crystal Donkor, are two former students who helped, along with Ms. Stewart-Hawkins and others, form Preston Forever, a group of graduates fighting the closure. Like Councilwoman Farías, they credit their Preston education and the Sisters of the Divine Compassion with instilling in them the independence, leadership skills and curiosity that motivated them to take action.
“Preston was the foundation for my trajectory to be the woman that I am today,” said Crystal Donkor, an English professor at Southern Methodist University.
Their cause was boosted recently when John McCarrick, a lawyer whose wife and cousins attended Preston, submitted a brief to the attorney general. He said he was approached almost three years ago by two of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion — “rebel nuns,” as he called them — who he said were unhappy about the organization’s process of pulling away from the school. His brief asserts that the organization is illegally breaking its lease agreement with the school.
“The notion that they somehow have the right to monetize this property because it’s valuable real estate sits wrong with me,” Mr. McCarrick said.
