St. Andrew Church and its affiliated grammar school in the Town of Tonawanda will close by the end of the school year, diocesan officials announced Friday afternoon.
The diocese said the decision to close the church and the St. Andrew Country Day School, at Sheridan Drive and Elmwood Avenue, was made because they “have been plagued by financial challenges over the last few years” and the situation reached a point of no return in recent months, according to a statement from the diocese.
Clerical and lay leadership at the parish made this decision in close consultation with the diocese, the statement said.
“The decision was very difficult but necessary to continue to provide for the pastoral and educational needs of the faithful and our elementary school students,” Bishop Michael Fisher said in the statement. “We will rally together with the family of parishes in Tonawanda, Kenmore and Grand Island to both welcome and satisfy those needs within our other parishes.”
St. Andrew parish opened in 1944 to serve the growing Catholic population in the Town of Tonawanda, which had seen a boom during World War II, according to an online history.
The original, combined St. Andrew’s church and school building opened in 1949 but the parish community soon outgrew the structure.
The current church was dedicated in 1962 and the St. Andrew Country Day School opened soon after.
The school, as with many Catholic elementary schools in Western New York, saw a general decline in enrollment since the 1970s.
This is only the latest Catholic elementary school in the Town of Tonawanda to close. Blessed Sacrament and St. Edmund closed in 2007 and St. Paul closed in 2009.
St. Andrew saw a recent peak of more than 200 students from prekindergarten through eighth grade during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Joseph Martone, a Diocese spokesman.
That was a period when many Catholic schools saw a boost in enrollment because they returned to in-person…
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