School merger a natural fit

Officials and parents say the announcement to combine Central Catholic and Holy Cross schools next school year is one that makes sense because the schools, which share a campus, are already interwoven in many ways.

Bishop Shelton Fabre of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux announced Monday that the two Morgan City Catholic schools will merge into one school beginning in the 2018-19 school year to help both schools maximize their resources as one entity.

The new unified school will be divided into a lower school for Pre-K3 through fifth grade and an upper school for sixth through 12th grade. There will be a principal for the lower school and another principal for the upper school.

“What we’re hoping for is, through this collaborative effort … we will have a unified advancement and development program and strategic plan in place,” said Suzanne Troxclair, diocesan superintendent of Catholic schools.

Tahitia Price, who has two daughters at Central Catholic, said there’s been talk for many years of eventually combining Central Catholic and Holy Cross into one school.

Students and staff members from both schools routinely work together, and schools are already so intertwined, Price said.

“It only makes sense for them to say they are one school,” Price said.

Even when Price’s children were students at Holy Cross, students from Central Catholic would work with elementary students, she said.

“It’s going to be big because of the fact it’s going to affect a lot of people, but the majority of kids at Holy Cross end up going to Central. And their siblings are there,” Price said.

One of the main changes resulting from the merger is that sixth-grade students will be grouped in the upper school, Troxclair said. Currently, Holy Cross goes up to sixth grade, and Central Catholic includes seventh grade through 12th grade.

Merging the schools won’t have any effect on tuition, which will continue to be tiered based on grade level, Troxclair said.

Tuition assistance will continue to be available for students who are seeking a Catholic education and “have a financial challenge,” Troxclair said.

Lower school students will still have classes in the current Holy Cross building. Sixth- through eighth-grade students will go to school in one section of the current Central Catholic building, while ninth through 12th-grade students will attend classes in a different part of that building, Troxclair said.

A committee of stakeholders will be formed to work on “re-branding” the unified school and name the school, too, Troxclair said.