Declining rolls at several Dunedin Catholic schools have forced the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin to consider the future of the city's Catholic education network.
Although the overall rolls of Dunedin's nine Catholic primary schools had dropped only from 795 to 756 in the past decade, the rolls at St Joseph's School in Port Chalmers and St Mary's School in Kaikorai had more than halved in recent years.
St Joseph's roll has dropped from 42 in 2012 to 19 this year, and the St Mary's roll dropped from 47 in 2007 to 21 this year.
Catholic Diocese of Dunedin general manger Gerald Scanlan said the diocese would consider the future of the two schools, which could potentially lead to their closure.
"The configuration of our schools, historically, was aligned to where our parishes were situated, which has meant that we tended to have reasonably small schools in suburban areas.''
Mr Scanlan said over time, people's preferences about where they lived had changed, and parish sizes in some areas had declined. It had forced the diocese to amalgamate some of its parishes in recent years.
The situation was similar at Catholic schools.
Some had ended up with "under-utilised assets'', he said.
"St Joseph's and St Mary's illustrate this.
"From our point of view, we recognise there are a lot of stakeholders to have conversations with, about where our schools should be and how we ensure they are successful and viable for contemporary education.
"So we've got a couple of conversations happening around those two schools, recognising that they cater for a small but significant group of parents, and we don't want to act quickly on this.
"We want to involve them in discussions about what options we have and how best to put those options in place,'' Mr Scanlan said.
Closure was one option, but there were others, including the trinity model, which the diocese had used with success in Southland, he said.
Three Catholic schools - one in Bluff, one in Nightcaps and one in Invercargill - had been joined together and had a single board and principal, but continued to operate on separate sites.
"That model has proved quite successful. In fact, the roles at both Bluff and Nightcaps have bounced back a bit.
"It's certainly one of the options on the table. Whether it translates over to a Dunedin urban environment is open for discussion.
"Our preference is not to close schools if we can avoid it. But equally, we have to face realities.''
The Sacred Heart School roll has dropped from 64 to 41 in the past decade, but Mr Scanlan said the school would not be included in the review.
Overall, primary rolls across Dunedin have reached their highest level in nearly a decade, and had increased 12.14% to 2725 since 2008.
However, secondary school rolls have sunk to their lowest level in more than a decade (dropping 8% to 7009 since 2008), raising questions about why the increased primary rolls have not flowed on to secondary schools.
One of Dunedin's longest-serving principals, Jane Johnson, of Logan Park High School, said it was not of concern, and it was "only a matter of time'' before the increase in primary rolls would flow through.
She believed the increase in primary rolls had not yet reached secondary level because much of the overall growth in the primary rolls was due to an increase in the number of year 1-4 pupils.
She said Dunedin secondary schools were preparing for a surge in pupils in the next five to 10 years, not only from the increase in primary pupils, but an increase in pupils coming from further north as families avoid the housing crisis.
"Also, the Syrian refugees coming to Dunedin have predominantly primary school children. That's certainly going to have an impact as well. I'm predicting a healthy revival of rolls.''
Roll call
Rolls at Dunedin Catholic primary schools 2007 2016
Sacred Heart School 64 41
St Bernadette's School 100 151
St Brigid's School 101 97
St Francis Xavier School 93 98
St Joseph's Cathedral School 136 123
St Joseph's School (Port Chalmers) 26 19
St Mary's School (Dunedin) 47 21
St Mary's School (Mosgiel) 153 137
St Peter Chanel School (Green Island) 75 69
