Keep The Academy of Our Lady of Peace, New Providence Open

Catholic school is vital to the community and the children.

My granddaughter has been in this school since kindergarten and her younger sister was to start kindergarten this is August. Their parents were comfortable knowing that while they were at work they were safe. Please reconsider your decision.

I am a former parishioner of Our Lady of Peace and currently still work in New Providence. This school community can't simply be replaced by another Catholic school in the area.

A wonderful school that should be kept open to continue providing a quality and nurturing Catholic education!

I have a friend with a child there and she says the school is working wonders with him.

This is a great school with a caring staff. It's a disservice to the community to abolish a blue ribbon school such as this.

Have attended Mass every week for the last 41 years.Not once was a there mention made of any trouble with the school.

I've worked and at times lived in this community for the past 22 years and OLP has been a wonderful presence in this town. Review your data and let that guide your decision-making. And if you find that you made a decision in haste, which is understandable given the global conditions, do not be too proud to admit you were wrong and then course-correct here. Adversely impacting the education of our youth and the careers of committed teachers is absolutely the wrong investment decision.

The option for a Catholic education for our children is important to our community.

These kids deserve to continue their education where they are happy and successful

Please keep my school open.

Reopen school now. A mind is a terrible thing to waste

Please reconsider keeping the school open. For the sake of the students as well as the teachers. I speak as a 1968 graduate of OLP.

Many on this petition have already articulated well- how wonderful this school is, how much its contributed to peoples' lives, how much it means to us, and how badly a closing right now hurts people - particularly the faculty. Since these closings seem to be driven by financial issues within the archdiocese, there's another point I believe should be considered: Closure of a school like this, in this manner, is a VERY POOR BUSINESS DECISION for the Archdiocese of Newark. AOLP has 60+ years of alumni, quite a few I'm sure very financially successful with great business acumen. From just a business point of view, that's an enormous amount of goodwill and resource that outweighs liquidation (book) value Many Many Many times over. Why would you let the majority of the value of that goodwill go up in smoke? If short-term liquidity is the issue, there are many better alternatives than destroying all this value. As you can see by many of the responses, there tends to be Much passion for one's school, and this is not an average school. Doesn't this highlight the significant opportunity cost of not leveraging the passion of alumni? Clearly people are upset at how this is being handled. How can this not result in a decrease of donations to the church? What about the reputation of the catholic church as an employer - to future teachers considering a catholic school? Do you want to increase the cost of attracting faculty? Please step back for a moment and re-think this. Don't let escalation of commitment and anchoring corrupt your logic. None of us are perfect but the ability to change your mind when presented with new information is one of the things that enables great leadership and exhibits true wisdom. Closing this school and particularly doing it this way, without truly exhausting opportunities and alternatives would be a very bad mistake.

Catholic school graduate

It is nice school,support to keep open.

OLP has been a positive presence in our community since I was a child growing up here. Please consider keeping it as an option for families.

I am in 4th Grade at AOLP. I hope that the school does not close so that I can stay here. It made me so sad to hear the news. I have been here since Pre K 3 and this is the only school that I have ever known.

Please don't close this school because I LOVE the education. I am in the first grade and have been here since pre-K 3. I want to stay at this school and not go to a new school.

Please keep the school open!