NCEA

John Reyes, the NCEA’s executive director for operational vitality, said last year the closures disproportionately impacted urban communities where significant numbers of Black children, including many from non-Catholic families, attended Catholic schools.

John Reyes, the NCEA’s executive director for operational vitality, said the pandemic has been an "accelerant" for longstanding challenges facing Catholic education.

Other significant annual declines were a 2.7% drop in 2003 at the peak of the clergy sex abuse crisis and 3.5% in 2008 amid the Great Recession, according to the NCEA.

John Reyes, the NCEA’s executive director for operational vitality, said the pandemic has been an “accelerant” for longstanding challenges facing Catholic education.

“Catholic schools have a very profound impact on young people of low-income backgrounds, students of color, kids from single-parent homes,” said the NCEA’s chief innovation officer, Kevin Baxter “That makes it all the more tragic if we lose the Catholic schools that serve those populations.”