SAN DIEGO — Despite the school community’s valiant effort to raise funds and increase enrollment, St. Katharine Drexel Academy (SKDA) will close its doors for the last time this summer.
The diocesan Office for Schools has offered a $1,000 tuition discount for the 2025-2026 academic year to every student who finishes this year at St. Katharine Drexel Academy and will attend another local Catholic elementary school next year.
The Schools Office is also committed to helping the school’s faculty and staff to find jobs at other schools, giving them priority as job openings arise.
St. Katharine Drexel Academy, which opened in fall of 2018, is a diocesan school formed through the merging of two parochial schools, Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, that were closed because of low enrollment.
Diocesan Superintendent Leticia Oseguera described it as “truly a beautiful little school,” but one that also had struggled with low enrollment from its earliest days.
Oseguera said that, when Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart schools closed, they had a combined enrollment of 177 students. The diocese’s goal was for St. Katharine Drexel Academy to have at least 200 –– a goal that was never reached.
The school opened with 154 students and, by the end of its second year, enrollment had dropped to 110. It peaked at 130 students in late 2023, before continuing to decline once again. As of January 2025, the school’s enrollment had fallen to an all-time low of 94.
St. Katharine Drexel Academy has been running an annual deficit throughout its history. This year’s alone is close to $400,000. Next year’s would be even larger.
The Diocese of San Diego has been providing support to the school in many ways since its inception, including through professional development for its teachers and the creation of partnerships between the school and the University of San Diego and Loyola Marymount University.
Since the school was established in 2018, the school has received subsidies from the diocese and from the founding parishes in excess of $1 million.
“St. Katharine Drexel Academy is a great school, a wonderful school, with engaged families and a dedicated faculty,” said Oseguera. “While it’s tempting to blame St. Katherine Drexel’s closure on the diocese’s bankruptcy proceedings, the unfortunate fact is that there aren’t enough students to keep the school open. Enrollment has continued to decline and the deficit has only grown.”
“In the end, it’s just not sustainable,” she said.
Along with Cardinal Robert W. McElroy and the diocese’s three auxiliary bishops, Oseguera made the “very difficult decision” to close the school at the end of the current academic year.
Joined by Auxiliary Bishop Michael Pham, she addressed a gathering of school parents last Oct. 24 inside Blessed Sacrament Church.
“During the meeting, the parents spoke very passionately about the school and their desire to be given an opportunity to try to save the school,” Oseguera recalled.
She and Bishop Pham relayed their request to the cardinal, who agreed to grant them additional time for a last-ditch effort to save the school.
St. Katharine Drexel Academy was given until Feb. 1 to raise $500,000 and to enroll another 30 students for next year.
“They were grateful for the opportunity to try to save their school,” said Oseguera, “but at the same time, understood … how difficult of a task this was going to be.”
In a Feb. 5 letter addressed to the school community,” Oseguera shared that these two “critical benchmarks” had not been met.
The school raised $114,000; this included about $12,000 raised “through valiant parent efforts,” as well as an additional $102,000 that Principal Maria Guadalupe Hernandez was able to raise through major donations, said Oseguera. No new students were enrolled for next year.
Oseguera shared that a school fair will be held on campus; parents will be able to learn about other local Catholic schools where they can enroll their children for next year. She also promised that the community would have “ways to celebrate the history and legacy of SKDA and what it represents to so many.”
“We can both mourn a loss and celebrate the legacy of SKDA, of Blessed Sacrament Parish School, and of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,” she wrote. “Let’s make the next few months a time of unity, love, faith, and celebration for all the wonderful students, parents, teachers, and administrators who played a role in that incredible history.”
