Picketers Seek to Keep GCA in White Plains
On Monday, the coldest morning of this season so far, the staff of Good Counsel Academy High School stood outside the campus entrance at 52 North Broadway, White Plains at 8 a.m. demanding to be noticed. They were joined by students who had the day off from school, parents, and other supporters and stood holding signs at the four corners of the intersection in front of the school.
They were met with an ongoing cacophony of supportive honks from the cars and trucks passing by during a busy rush hour.
The hand-made signs read: “Keep GCA at 52 North Broadway,” “Keep Compassion Alive,” “We are a Family,” and, of course, “Save GCA.”
The demonstration was organized by teachers at the school who were supposed to attend a mandatory “Day of Compassion” on the school campus, an annual retreat day for all educators associated with the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, founders of Good Counsel Academy.
The students had the day off and the retreat was expected to begin around 8 a.m. that morning. The demonstrators hoped that by boycotting the meeting, members of the religious order’s leadership team that has put the entire campus property up for sale would become aware of their voices and stop and listen.
According to parents and teachers at the demonstration, the leadership team has been silent, with no response to requests by high school parents and the school’s board of trustees, that they be given an opportunity to raise funds to purchase the school themselves. At a general meeting on October 9 attended by hundreds of supporters, the board asked for at least a one-year extension for them to find either a new home or way to purchase their school property themselves.
The leadership team had informed the board they had to vacate the premises by July 1, 2015. The property was put on the market at the end of May 2014.
In trying to find a new and suitable location, the board had determined there was not enough time to accomplish that goal and the survival of Good Counsel Academy was in serious jeopardy.
An online newsletter from the sisters last week, however, did mention that the leadership team was in the process of addressing the school board’s questions.
Concerned that developer bids for purchase of the property have already been received and are being considered, parents, staff and students feel an urgent call to action.
A social media and informational email program has been in operation for several weeks with all the fervor and organizational skills of a union campaign program, instructing supporters on letter-writing, petition-signing and other activities. Outreach has gone to the New York Catholic Archdiocese and to the Papal offices in Rome, according the several emails circulating the names and address for an extensive letter-writing campaign.
Facing financial difficulties similar to those experienced by other religious orders in a day when the traditional roles of religious leaders are being challenged worldwide, the Sisters of the Divine Compassion are in the midst of an apparent schism evidenced by the fact that many of the sisters within the community seem to be in complete disagreement with the decision by their leadership team to sell off the parcel.
Many of the sisters attending the school meetings say they would like to see another solution to their financial problems than the selling off of their mother house and the Chapel of the Divine Compassion that have been listed as both national and state historic sites.
