Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette photos
	Isabella Dugan, 5, concentrates on writing the letter "U," while teacher Mariangela Lorence helps Brandon Kraft, 6, during kindergarten class at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in Scott. The tiny school enrolls 73 students in grades K-8, but that's up from 58 in 2004.
	Graphic: Smallest Catholic schools
	Sarah Uzar, 10, left, jumps ropes with her friends during recess at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in Scott. An army of volunteers runs the library, the front office, the cafeteria and fund-raising activities at the school.

Teachers wiped tears while they emptied the closets at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School in Burgettstown.

Children, eager to inherit a piece of their school's history, picked through piles of long forgotten artifacts to find items they will cherish in years to come when their school is gone.

"We want to take as many memories as we can from here," said Donna Shoup, who has taught 26 years at the Washington County parochial school.

Our Lady of Lourdes and three other schools in the 97-school Diocese of Pittsburgh will not be reopening next school year.

They are the latest casualties in what has become a familiar tale: declining enrollments, rising debt and, finally, a decision by the diocese to close the school.

But a handful of schools with woefully low enrollments -- under 100 students for K-8 -- are somehow managing to survive against all odds, a testament to good planning, good fortune and often heroic efforts by parents and parishioners.

Mathematically, grade schools with less than 100 students have trouble providing a cost-effective education. That's one of the reasons Pittsburgh Public Schools is closing tiny Bon Air Elementary School.

But the Rev. Kris Stubna, secretary for education for the diocese, said he can't shut down a school just because they have low enrollment.

"There's a sense of pride these parishes have in operating their schools," Father Stubna said. "It would be like the death of a family member.

"Their parents and grandparents went there. Their great-grandparents built the place," he said. "So, for them, this is about who they are. And if they're going to have to close, they're not going to close without a fight."

The most crucial measure of survival is debt.

The diocese does not allow parishes to spend more than 35 percent of their annual budgets to maintain a school. Those that do overspend and end up borrowing from the diocese are the ones that get closed, especially if enrollment continues to decline.

That's what happened at Our Lady of Lourdes.

Money has been tight for so long hardly a year went by when there weren't rumors the school might close. It got so monotonous, people got numb to the warning. Now many are in shock.

"The parents thought this was another cry wolf," said Rita Caskey, a Burgettstown resident who does fundraising for the school. "But this was the year. ... People don't feel they did as much as they could have. If they'd known, they could have done more."

The parish was giving about 67 percent of its income just to balance the school's budget, causing $109,000 in debt over the past year. Tuition for next year would have to increase by about $1,600, bringing it to $3,800 for a single child. Only 67 students had signed up to enroll.

At the other 11 small schools, 10 of which are in the diocese, the story is quite different.

Mount Alvernia High School in Millvale, an independent Catholic school, which does not belong to the diocese, is solvent. And none of the small diocese schools nor their parishes have any outstanding debt, according to the diocese.

Those schools also have a corps of devoted supporters who make sure the bills get paid.

Whole communities get involved with raising money for these schools by buying cookie dough and raffle tickets and attending fish fries, egg hunts, golf outings and countless bake sales and pancake breakfasts.

Many of them also operate preschool programs that provide a steady source of revenue.

School administrators hold up their end by being frugal with the funds.

"We don't spend if we don't have to," said Anna Watt, principal of St. Michael, a school in Elizabeth with 74 students. "The last couple of years we've actually had a small surplus."

Enrollment at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Scott, while no where near the 200 students who attended the school during its heyday in the 1980s, is on the rise.

In 2004, the student body was only 58. Today, it's risen to 73.

Despite a devastating flood in 2004 that crippled the Carnegie community, damaged the school building and forced the parish to relocate the students, there was never any consideration to close the tiny school.

An army of volunteers runs the library, the front office, the cafeteria and fund-raising activities at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. School principal Kimberly Stevenson said the majority of parishioners are older people who want to preserve the heritage.

"They can hardly walk, and if we're collecting pennies for our mission in Peru, they'll be coming in with bags of pennies," Ms. Stevenson said.

Fortunately, money raised from the popular Monday night bingo at Bishop Canevin High School goes to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, providing a generous stream of cash.

Enrollment at Catholic schools throughout the country is on a downward spiral.

According to the National Catholic Education Association, about 2.65 million students attended Catholic schools in 2000. This year, there were around 2.36 million students nationwide, a drop of about 10 percent.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh also has closed more schools this year than usual. The diocese has been shutting down about two schools a year for about the past five years. This year, it was four.

St. Colman School in Turtle Creek and Incarnation Academy Catholic School on the North Side will not reopen next year. Bishop Leonard School in Mount Oliver and St. Mary of the Mount School on Mount Washington will merge to form one Catholic school.

More school closures are inevitable.

"A small percentage of our schools are showing dramatic declines, basically in the city of Pittsburgh and a few that are in small communities up and down the rivers," Father Stubna said. "In all likelihood, they won't continue because there just aren't enough people there."

Father Stubna said about 20 percent of Catholic schools in the diocese are in the city and are showing dramatic declines. Parochial schools in the South Hills, Robinson, Mt. Lebanon and Upper St. Clair are bursting at the seams.

"It's not a declining Catholic school population," he said. "It's a shifting population that is in some ways responding to realignments in the larger society."

Some families that Catholic schools serve are moving out of the city, so Catholic schools that have traditionally served a city population will have to relocate to areas where there is more demand.

After 67 years on Troy Hill, North Catholic High School recently announced it will relocate to either northern Allegheny County or southern Butler County in hopes of reversing the trend of declining student enrollment.

Not all of the 23 Catholic schools in the city are in peril.

Two of the high schools -- Central Catholic and Oakland Catholic -- are undergoing multi-million dollar expansions. And four schools supported by the Extra Mile Education Foundation, which provides money for parochial schooling of inner city children in the city and in Wilkinsburg, will stay afloat because of help from the Bishop's Education Fund and businesses which support those schools through the Earned Income Tax Credit program.

Schools in the diocese receive more than $4 million a year from those sources, which goes to student aid.

"We're doing everything we can to keep it affordable," Father Stubna said. "But there's no question that as costs continue to rise, some people just can't access it because it's too expensive. When you get under 100 students, the costs just keep going up."

The oldest continually run school in the diocese, 160-year-old St. Wendelin Catholic School in Butler has found resourceful ways to educate its 81 students.

Fifth- and sixth- graders are taught together in the same classrooms; and seventh- and eighth-graders also are taught together. Capital improvements, including a new playground, are paid for and installed by parents and parishioners.

"We make do with what we have," said Charlene Fleming, the principal at Wendelin. "Things as simple as companies donating paper to us, and we'll flip it over and use the blank side."

They hope another generation of Catholic students will appreciate those sacrifices.

At Our Lady of Lourdes, some girls proudly walked the halls wearing the outdated cheerleading uniforms they discovered in old boxes. Other students anxiously wrapped their hands with the rosary beads that teachers gave away as if a prayer might still save their school from closing.

"My whole family went to this school," said Ben Suehr, a 13-year-old seventh-grader at Our Lady of Lourdes.

"When I heard it was closing, I was just thinking about everyone who came here, and I was real disappointed I was the only one in my family that wasn't going to be able to graduate. I had one more year."