TOWN OF TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Despite ongoing uncertainty in the Diocese of Buffalo, Western New York Catholic schools are experiencing enrollment growth and implementing strategic changes to strengthen their educational system.
I recently visited St. Christopher's School in the Town of Tonawanda to meet with Catholic school leaders and learn about the current state of Catholic education in Western New York.
At the school, students were actively engaged in classroom lessons, demonstrating the continued vitality of Catholic education despite the troubled state of the diocese.
WATCH: The state of Catholic education in Western New York
"Our enrollment has gone up — we're at about 350 students — so we've increased 100 students over the last couple of years, so we've seen nothing but just growth in our school," said principal Denise Cronyn.
Catholic Schools Superintendent Joleen Dimitroff said many schools across the diocese are showing positive trends.
"Many of our schools have stayed the same," Dimitroff said. "We had a few schools that took a slight dip in enrollment, but we were able to work with our schools that have that lower enrollment."
Dimitroff expressed optimism about the future of Catholic education in the region.
"I really do think that we are on a great trajectory, and we have a very bright future," said Dimitroff.
In January, Bishop Michael Fisher issued a Catholic Schools Strategic Plan for the diocese's 29 Catholic schools, which serve students in pre-K through 8th grade.
The plan comes after the diocese announced the closure of St. John Vianney in Orchard Park at the end of the 2025 school year and closed St. Andrew's Day School in Tonawanda in 2024.
However, the diocese has committed to avoiding future closures.
"The bishop is very strong in his commitment to not closing any more schools," Dimitroff said.
The strategic plan calls for migrating to one unified school system with a diocesan school board and centralized operations.
"You can imagine right now, we have 29 different schools that have their own marketing, their own payroll, their own insurance, so it's a way for us to work behind the scenes to bring those together to save money and to make our schools more financially viable," Dimitroff described.
Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Genco Gasiecki believes the centralization will strengthen academic programs across all schools.
"My hope is that by becoming a school system, all of our academics are just going to get stronger," Gasiecki said. "We'll really be able to do that when we are centralizing more of our resources behind the scenes."
The assistant superintendent is working to align curriculum with state learning standards to ensure all schools maintain rigorous academic programs.
"Our students perform consistently very well across the diocese relative to their public counterparts," she said.
School leaders say they're seeing positive momentum in the Catholic education system.
"You can see the shift, you can see that the tide is changing, and you can really see the positivity coming from the department itself," Cronyn said.
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