Officials at Saint Aloysius Parish School in Pottstown made a big announcement Friday during morning Mass: The K-8 school of 283 students would be moving a couple miles to another building in Lower Pottsgrove.
The new location is actually an old building and well-known to many in the southwestern part of Montgomery County: the former Saint Pius X High School, which has been vacant -- mostly -- since 2011.
In announcing the move, Saint Aloysius said it had hit and then surpassed its ambitious goal of raising $600,000 to pay for a new roof and extensive renovations to the old Pius building.
But the building, once rehabbed, will be a great improvement for students at Saint Aloysius, according to Principal Sarah Kerins.
"We have on our current campus four different buildings. Our children have to walk outside to go to the gym, go to lunch," Kerins said. "At the Pius facility, it's all in one building. And there are sports fields there, plenty of grassy areas, a regular-size gym."
Grant money to expand the school's science and math programming will also be better utilized in the Pius building, which has science labs formerly used by high school students.
About $200,000 of the $650,000 raised will pay for a new roof, the Rev. Joseph Maloney, pastor of Saint Aloysius, said. The rest will go to renovations for a building that was built in the early 1950s.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
The donations came from 205 donors during the last six months, Maloney said. A couple donations were above $50,000, he said, but most were much more "modest."
Kerins said the plan is to begin the 2017-2018 school year in the new building, so work will begin very soon.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia said in a statement that the Pius X facility "will be leased by Saint Aloysius for a nominal fee."
As for the current grade school on North Hanover Street in Pottstown, future plans are not yet known.
"Future disposition of this building has not been determined at this time," the archdiocese said, noting that the campus is owned by the parish. "It will be decided by the pastor of Saint Aloysius Parish in consultation with his parish pastoral and finance councils in a manner consistent with providing for continued parish viability and sustainability."
Saint Pius X High School was an archdiocesan school from 1953 until 2010 when the new Pope John Paul II High School was opened, the archdiocese said.
