"If this school closed, it would be devastating to the neighborhood," said Chuck Brawner, standing outside the 134-year-old Roland Avenue school yesterday as he and his wife picked up their son, Brooks, a fourth-grader. "We shudder to think what we'd do."
The Brawners said the school has been struggling with dwindling enrollment and financial problems for years. The candy bar sales of Chuck Brawner's day have been replaced with creative fundraisers, including an annual race, can donations and a $2 charge for students who wear jeans instead of uniforms.
"This place has sentimental value," he said. "The academics are great, and parents are very involved."
Annemarie Vallonga, who has a daughter in seventh grade and a son in fifth grade at St. Thomas Aquinas, said she is concerned that Catholic schools won't have a future if more families don't invest in them.
"It frightens me," she said. "I think it's a reflection of what's happening in our world that people seem to value material things more than spirituality. We don't have a lot of money in my family, but we made Catholic school a priority."
But Tshona Martin said it is tough for parents to afford the ballooning cost of tuition. She's a single parent who travels from Cockeysville to send her 9-year-old daughter, Micael, and 5-year-old son, Jordan, to the Hampden school. She choose St. Thomas Aquinas because she was impressed with its small class size, academics and personalized attention. The school has only one class per grade and about 15 students per class, she said.
But if financial pressures cause costs to rise, Martin said that she could no longer send her children to the school.
"It's overwhelming at times with tuition," she said. "We also have to pay book fees, lunches and outside expenses. I don't know how I'd do it."
