Three Catholic schools to close in Twin Cities archdiocese

Three Catholic schools in the Twin Cities Archdiocese have announced plans to close.

St. Joseph of Red Wing, St. Mathias of Hampton and San Miguel of Minneapolis will all close at the end of the school year.

Marty Frauenheim, superintendent of the Archdiocese schools, said each school did a careful review of its future viability.

"A lot of it really had to do with changing demographics. St. Mathias -- this wonderful little school out in the rural community -- it had very few children that were school age that were there. It had 22 children," she said.

A total of 125 children is enrolled in the three closing schools. The Archdiocese currently has 98 schools with a total enrollment of nearly 33,000 students.

St. Joseph and St. Mathias were both on a list of 10 schools under urgent review late last year.

Frauenheim said eight other schools also underwent urgent reviews, but decided they could remain open.

"The challenges and the situations that put them into urgent review -- those haven't changed," she said. "But what has happened is those schools, as many of them said, kind of had a wake-up call and decided to take a look at a plan to help them meet those challenges."

The school restructuring comes as part of the Archbishop's restructuring plan that called for 21 parish mergers last year.