The halls of Wildwood Catholic are quiet today. Students were given an unexpected day off after receiving the crushing news yesterday that their school will close for good in June.
With 194 students, shifting population and a growing deficit, the St. Ann's Parish supported high school will close. 19 faculty members, hard hit by the news, must find new jobs.
Tim O'Brien, the union representative and social studies teacher, hoped his son Sean, a sophomore, would have graduated from Wildwood Catholic and so did Sean.
"Honestly, it's really sad and really disappointed because I grew up here," Sean said.
Longtime educators say the school is a family. Teacher Mary Walsh went to Wildwood Catholic and so did her daughter.
"We're all so intertwined in this building," Walsh said.
Wildwood Catholic has served students since 1948 and is the only Catholic high school in Cape May County. Students are being offered $1,000 tuition vouchers to attend Holy Spirit in Absecon, but that's at least an hour away.
"The expectation is that we are going try and arrange a bus that would leave from here, we would work it out with the adjoining parishes of Cape May County," Father Michael Field of St. Ann-Assumption Parish.
As for the real estate, it does have a future serving as Catholic community center and be home of a new grammar school.
