Saint Joseph Catholic Academy

Saint Joseph Catholic Academy (formerly Saint Joseph School) was a private Roman Catholic elementary school, located in the heart of Brookfield, a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, and served Pre-K through Eighth Grade. It is one of the two church properties that make up the Brookfield Center Historic District (the other being the Congregational Church of Brookfield. Opened in 1958, it closed in June of 2020 due to a steady decline in enrollment.
History
In 1956, Reverend Piaskowski of Saint Joseph Catholic Church invited the Sisters of Charity of Saint Louis to be religion teachers and to begin preparing for a school. His good friend, TV variety show host Ed Sullivan, offered to stage elaborate shows in Brookfield to raise funds to open the school doors. In 1958, Saint Joseph School opened with Grades 1 through 5. For the next 3 years, a new grade level was opened, making the school a Grade 1 through 8 school. In 1961, Reverend Piaskiowski passed away, and the Church held its first funeral Mass in its new location under the school gymnasium. In 1984, a Kindergarten class was opened in the convent building, which is now used for parish offices.
When a new church building was erected in 1992, the baseball field was relocated behind the school building and was dedicated to Sister Pauline Charbonneau, one of the original Sisters of Charity who taught as well as served as the school's principal for the first fourteen years. In addition, the Kindergarten class was moved to the school building where the former Church was located under the gymnasium. In 2005, the art/music area was divided into an art room and a fourth grade classroom. The music area was relocated to the gym and a pre-Kindergarten program was launched for children ages three and four.
New education model
Due to declining enrollment, the Diocese of Bridgeport, who oversaw the school, made the decision in 2018 to try a relatively new education model - and the first of its kind in Fairfield County for a parochial school - called blended learning. Moving away from the traditional grouping by grades, students were grouped together based on their abilities, and the role of technology to aid in learning was increased. This allowed children to learn at their own pace. If the model worked at Saint Joseph's, it would have been a model for other Catholic schools.
This new model required half as many teachers, which lowered overhead costs for the school to ease financial challenges. The diocese was subsidizing the school with $200,000 annually, and this new model would alleviate that.
The school was organized into five "bands," which mixed grade levels:
Closure
The school closed on June 30th, 2020, after years of declining enrollment and financial struggles. The school was unable to meet the enrollment and financial benchmarks that the Diocese of Bridgeport established.
In 2012, Saint Joseph's School had 205 students. By 2017, the school had 160 students and was operating at a loss. By the 2019-20 school year, enrollment was down to 66 students.

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