As Deb Kraus walked the halls of Christ Our Savior Catholic School, she carried a big, pink plush rabbit. When she decided to tour the recently closed South Holland school one last time Friday, Kraus knew she had to bring it with her.

Kraus taught at the school in the 1990s, when it then went by St. Jude the Apostle and she went by Deb Powell. A fifth and sixth grade teacher, Kraus worked on the school’s plays with longtime music director Michael Cook.

“The first play we did together was ‘The Velveteen Rabbit,’ ” Kraus said. “Every play that we ever did, we always had the rabbit with us somewhere.”

Eventually, they staged “The Wizard of Oz” near the end of a school year. It was one of the many times Kraus said she got to appreciate Cook’s “phenomenal” talents as a singer and music teacher. But it was also the last.

“The next day, he didn’t come to school,” Kraus said. “What happened is he died. They found him in his apartment. So, I went and helped to clean up his office, and this is the bunny.”

Kraus left the school just before 2000 and retired roughly eight years ago from Morgan Park Academy. But she said she still has strong connections to Christ Our Savior and was mourning the loss.

“It was really hard,” she said. “This was such a great school. I’m so sad to see what is happening here. … There were some great, great people here.”

As Mycah Brooks stepped onto the hardwood floor of the gymnasium Friday during a farewell visit, he could vividly remember the great smells that wafted out of the open window of the kitchen. Brooks, a Dolton resident who was athletic director at Christ Our Savior for at least 15 years, said the school’s closure is devastating.

“This is everything not just to me but the neighborhood,” he said. “It was everything. All my kids went through here. A lot of people in the area, their kids went through there. This school meant everything to us. It was heartbreaking. I couldn’t believe it.”

Brooks said after the Archdiocese of

Chicago roughly a half-decade ago shut down South Holland’s Seton Academy, a college preparatory high school, he was certain Christ Our Savior would survive. So it hit him double when the archdiocese in January announced it was closing along with Lansing’s St. Ann School and St. Joseph Catholic School in Summit.

“It’s heartbreaking for this whole area,” Brooks said. “There’s no more Catholic schools in this area. It’s a shame.”

The archdiocese in a news release called the closure decisions difficult but based on “low and steadily declining enrollment levels and large financial deficits.” Christ Our Savior has seen a 24% decline in enrollment over the past four years and was facing a $300,000 deficit this year, according to the archdiocese.

The school was officially formed in 2004 by the merging of six Catholic schools: Holy Ghost, Queen of Apostles, St. Jude the Apostle, Our Lady of Knock, St. Victor and St. Andrew. Originally, it had two campuses, one in the old St. Andrew space in Calumet City and the other in South Holland, the former confines of St. Jude the Apostle. But about 2010 the schools consolidated to the South Holland campus, according to Deb Matusz, the administrative assistant for Christ Our Savior.

“It was more cost efficient to have one campus here,” she said.

Principal Karen Brodzik and Matusz, who previously taught second grade at Knock, were among those who started at Christ Our Savior in 2004. Upon its closure, the school had 146 students and had come to serve 19 different ZIP codes, Matusz said.

“We weren’t just here,” Matusz said. “We serviced a lot of families that wanted a Catholic or Christian education for their children, even though some of them weren’t Catholic. A majority of our students now aren’t Catholic, but their parents want a Christian atmosphere.”

Matusz, who was a teacher and business manager at Christ Our Savior, said they were devastated by the losses.

“There’s a vast wasteland here,” she said. “Our families are very devastated that they don’t have any options, except driving 20 to 25 minutes. With kids, that’s not always feasible.”

What made it all tougher, Matusz said, is that this came at the end of a school year defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. The school was known for a lot of extracurriculars, but restrictions kept many of those at bay for at least some of the year. Christ Our Savior went from roughly two-thirds of the student body in remote learning to start the year to only a handful learning that way by the end. And Matusz said they did not know many of the activities, such as the gala, would never be back again.

“We didn’t know all those things were going to be our last,” she said.

The student body is going to be really spread after the closure, Matusz said.

“Some are going to the public schools,” she said. “Some are going to a few of the Catholic schools that are convenient for them, some of the Christian schools in the area. But it’s just handfuls.”

Doris Funches had three children at Christ Our Savior and had to find new schools for all of them.

“My daughter was in the seventh grade. Her last year will be next year. So she has to find a whole new school for eighth grade,” Funches said.

Finding new schools amid all the closures has been a difficult because Christ Our Savior was about the community, she said.

“It’s not just academics,” Funches said. “All the teachers here know my kids. They’ve been here since first grade. It’s that familiarity.”

Many described Friday’s farewell event as something more akin to a memorial service. Sandra Radecki, who taught for 29 years at St. Victor and then 10 more at Christ Our Savior, said she came to get closure.

“That’s why I had to come and make sure I was seeing it one more time,” Radecki said. “It was all special. You made a difference in their lives.”

Linda Petner was there for 16 years, teaching Spanish and ultimately working with small groups that focused on reading and math.

“That was a very important part of my life here: working with children who were struggling and helping them succeed,” Petner said. “I felt great when I saw them succeed in that manner. And I taught religion to second graders. I prepared them for the sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation, and I loved doing that as well.”

Petner said she hopes for the best as she contemplates what comes next.

“It’s like a moratorium on a family,” she said. “I just hope things move on. There’s always been a saying that when God closes a door, he opens a window somehow. That’s the only thing we can expect in life is change. Hopefully, it will be a change for the better for all of us.”

Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.