Immaculata Academy on South Park in Hamburg will be closing at the end of the school year. A letter was issued by the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph explained they would no longer be able to operate the school.
In the letter to the parents of current students, Sister Ann Marie Hudzina, General Minister of the FSSJ stated that, “For the past 88 years...the congregation has supported the school by providing personnel and financial resources. Due to the changing realities within the congregation, furthering the FSSJ mission...via a school is no longer viable.”
“This is a truly difficult decision and one that has followed much prayerful discernment,” said Sister Jean Cherry, president of Immaculata Academy. “For 88 years, we have ministered to thousands of young women and have watched them become instruments of positive change – they are doctors, teachers, judges, mothers, and women religious – and for that we are truly thankful.”
This is the third all-girls, Catholic high school to close in recent years. In 2013, Holy Angels Academy in north Buffalo closed due to financial constraints and a drop in enrollment. Villa Maria Academy in Cheektowaga closed in 2006.
The school is scheduled to close its doors for good in June. Immaculata opened in 1928.
