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PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has announced that is closing a Pittsfield parochial school because of declining enrollment and associated financial strains.
The diocese announced Wednesday that St. Mark School will close at the end of the academic year.
The school, with students in kindergarten through eighth-grade, currently has just 70 students. Enrollment has declined by nearly 50 percent in the past five years.
Bishop Mitchell Rozanski called it a difficult but necessary decision to sustain Catholic education in Berkshire County.
St. Mark students will be eligible to transfer to St. Agnes Academy in Dalton.
The diocese has closed and merged several schools in the past few years for much the same reason. Rozanski announced in February that Cathedral and Holyoke Catholic high schools would merge.
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