St. Simon the Apostle School in St. Louis County, Missouri, will close at the end of the academic year because of low enrollment.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Catholic grade school has only 70 students registered for 2025-2026.
St. Simon has operated for 65 years and has struggled with low enrollment. The school is designed for 450 students and had an operating deficit of about $375,000 in 2022, according to the latest figures from the archdiocese.
The closing does not affect the Simon Says Early Childhood Center, which serves pre-K children on the parish campus.
The local Catholic education system is financially unsustainable, with too many grade schools for not enough students, archdiocesan leaders have said. Enrollment across all buildings has fallen below 65% capacity, straining the ability of parishes to subsidize an average school operating deficit of $600,000 each year.
A downsizing plan the archdiocese released in May 2023 has resulted in the closure or merger of close to 50 parishes. With St. Simon, nine Catholic grade schools will have since shuttered.
Two other parish schools have announced their closures at the end of this academic year: Our Lady of Guadalupe in Cool Valley and St. Joseph in Ste. Genevieve County.
