The City of Fall River has been in discussions with the Diocese of Fall River to explore the purchase of the former Bishop Connolly campus on Elsbree Street.
The high school was closed in 2023 following years of decreasing enrollment. At the time of its closure, the school housed 140 students. The Fall River School Department has been leasing space at the facility to expand its Pre-K program.
Mayor Paul Coogan says the city’s capital improvement plan calls for $85 million in investments to expand classroom space. He believes the purchase of Bishop Connolly will meet the demand for space at nearly a third of the cost.
Mayor Coogan says there are still many moving pieces involved in the purchase of Bishop Connolly, including assisting others occupying space on the campus.
The school committee has approved a plan to relocate all Pre-K classrooms to Bishop Connolly beginning next fall. As general enrollment in public schools grows, freed-up space within the elementary schools will allow the district to reconfigure some grades to lower class sizes.
So buy a building with tax payer money, ya know from the people that work. Expand the city run pre-k at the tax payers expense to put more kids in, pay more teachers, aids, nurse etc for mostly, (I did say mostly, not all) kids from houses where the parents don’t work. You know the ones that can’t be at the bus stop on time, you wait there as they run out in pajamas after 2 minutes. So how much more are my taxes going to go up.
I work at Bishop Connolly in the pre-k program. This is worded as if the program is going to have more classes but the classes already exist. The change would be the rest of the classes that are in elementary schools already would move to join the rest of us. They need the room in the elementary schools for growing population of pupils. Who knows if it will go through. Just saying