KINGSTON – Toni Sinagra would have been senior at John A. Coleman Catholic High School this fall, but in early August it was decided there would not be a Class of 2020 and that the school would close.
“I was very much looking forward to it,” she said. “Pep rallies, especially.”
The Class of 2019 graduated 35 students, and Ellen Anderson, a school principal, said the attendance numbers had dwindled to the point that closure became the final option.
“The demographics in the area have changed,” said Anderson. “Our incoming class was very low, and with an aging facility, we just could not sustain the enrollment and the facility to keep it going.”
The school opened in 1966, and a final mass for alumni was conducted Saturday in the school gymnasium, which was home to a girls’ basketball team that won state Class D titles with the past decade. The baseball team also won a state Class D title in 2012.
Breda McMahon had three children graduate from the high school, and she has been a volunteer at the school for 46 years.
“It was absolutely wonderful,” said McMahon. “There is no closure for Coleman. We remember Coleman with love.”
Anderson still comes to work at the Coleman, and she will help with dispersal of the building’s contents, which will either be liquidated or auctioned off.
“I will be here to help pack up with dignity,” she said. “We will be here until everything is squared away.”
The Archdiocese of New York owns the building, and Anderson does not know its future.
Sinagra, who now attends Kingston High School and SUNY Ulster, gave a reading during the mass and helped set up the final ceremony.
“I don’t really have words for it. It’s sad,” she said, of the school’s closure. “It’s a lot of emotions at one time.”
