Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 2, No. 31 - July 30, 2020
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Celebrates with the Community
What an amazing way to end the work week by visiting with a few Good Neighbors during a birthday celebration. Happy birthday little one. Photo courtesy Hawthorne Police Department.
Venerable St. Anthony Elementary
School Shutters Classroom Doors
By Duane Plank
Father Robert wrote that “this decision is
As you drove East on Grand Avenue six
not an easy one. It was made after careful
weeks or so ago, or took your daily lockdown
discernment and after continued efforts to
walk, past the corner of Lomita and Grand
improve the sustainability of the school over
streets in El Segundo, you may have noticed
many years. We remain hopeful that this is
blue banners hanging on the chain-link fence
not a permanent state of our school, but the
surrounding St. Anthony Catholic Church and
time has come to step back and reassess the
school promoting the 2020/21 elementary
viability of the school in this community.”
school year, hoping for a resumption of
Multiple messages left with the parish for
classroom normalcy as students, educators,
Father Robert to discuss the closure were
administrators, and parents yearned for a
not returned by the time this story was filed.
return to the actual classroom for the 20/21
Jill Deranian, principal at St. Anthony
school year.
since June 1 of 2018, said that the closing
Well, never mind. Because after more than
came out of the blue. “As a school,” she said,
a 60-year existence, St. Anthony Elementary
“we were not prepared to be closed. We had
School has closed its classroom doors, a victim
tours happening; we had a videographer, had
of perceived economic realities amongst the
just re-done two rooms, we had enrollment
worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic. The
happening.”
banners promoting the ramp-up to the 2020/21
Deranian, who had taught at the school
elementary school year have disappeared,
17 years ago when the enrollment was 350
with the only cloth advertisements still
students, said that while current enrollment
adorning the chain-link fences promoting the
was at seventy, at one-point enrollment had
resumption of the St. Anthony Pre-school for
dwindled to just 30. She and her staff, in
the youngest learners.
concert with St. Anthony’s parents, were
In a letter to the community dated June
making strides to boost enrollment at the
19 announcing the school closure and posted
school, which had yearly tuition of $4,400
on the parish website, pastor Father Robert
for the first student.
Victoria wrote that “the school continues to
“When I took the job on,” she said, “we
need an average of $200,000 a year from
knew there was a deficit, a huge deficit for
outside sources independent of tuition to
the last six years.” In January or December,
remain open.” He said that parish recognized
she said, Father Robert made a plea to the
the shortfall in 2016, “but we all chose to
parish, asking for funding to keep the school
fight for our school.” He wrote that the
open for the next two years.
“coronavirus pandemic has further undermined
The abrupt closure of the school sent the
the financial ability of the parish to fulfill
seventy students and their families scrambling
(its) pledge. All other resources are depleted.”
to find new schools during a pandemic,
and jettisoned nine St. Anthony school
employees, who also lost their health care,
Deranian said.
Georgiana Curcio was the principal at St.
Anthony from 2008 to 2015. She emailed
that her family has had a several decade
relationship with St. Anthony, with her husband
Fred attending the school beginning in 1965.
The Curcio’s also sent their two sons to the
parochial school.
Father Robert began his tenure at St.
Anthony in 2007. Curcio wrote that in 2008,
the school reached what she termed “anall
time-low,” due to dwindling enrollment,
possibly facing imminent closure. Curcio was
hired as the principal, and she said, started
working with “the dedicated and talented
group of teachers and staff, along with an
actively engaged group of parents.” She
said that the stakeholder’s efforts to keep
the school open at that time were “highly
impressive and very commendable.”
She said that what once began as “an
amicable and promising relationship between
the school and the pastor had disappointingly
deteriorated.” She termed Father Roberts’s
“attitude, actions and communication” at that
time as “openly aggressive and shockingly
unpriestly.”
After Curcio left the school, she said that
the school had a revolving door of principals,
culminating with Derosian’s selection in
June of 2018.
So, where will the displaced students land?
El Segundo Unified School District
See St. Anthony, page 8