Drexel Catholic High School which has 156 Negro pupils will be closed in June and its students will be transferred to other Catholic schools.

“The proposed transfer of Drexel’s students to other Catholic students to other Catholic schools was agreed upon for two reason,’ Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan said.

“First, it will provide educational facilities impossible now in a schools whose top enrollment has never exceeded 156 pupils. Second, it will end the de facto segregation of Drexel which has resulted from its location in a predominately Negro neighborhood.”

The change has proposed this shift: 1) admittance to a Catholic high school for all those coming seniors this June; 2) other Drexel students will be absorbed into St. Pius X and St. Joseph’s high school. Every effort will be made to accept those students who become sophomores or juniors this June, the archbishop said.

Since Catholic schools were integrated in June, 1962, the enrollment of both Pius X and St. Joseph’s has steadily increased. Drexel, which was built in 1961 in a shifting population area has not grown, partly because white students live more closely to the two other schools, and because Negro students are drawn largely from the adjoining areas which has limited number of Catholic families.

“It cannot be denied that many white Catholics have been reluctant about sending their sons and daughters to a school which is almost totally Negro. This simply indicates the scope of the racial problem facing the Church in the South. All but one or two Catholic elementary schools have been successfully integrated. St. Joseph’s, and our two private schools, Marist and D’Youville, have integrated for several years without incident,” Archbishop Hallinan stated.

All over the state, Georgia schools are being phased out or combined because it is impossible to give the students of a school with an enrollment less than 200 a proper education, he said.

The archdiocese has tried for five years to qualify Drexel.

“Father William Hoffman has given the school splendid leadership; the Sisters of St. Joseph (Baden, Pa.) and Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament plus excellent lay teachers constitute a good faculty.”

But accreditation, graded programs for exceptional students, library and the athletic program depend not upon the money supplied to the school (it has a 30,000 dollar deficit), but upon the size of enrollment, the flexibility possible at Pius X and St. Joseph’s.

“There can only be one measuring rod in any school, Catholic or public”, said the archbishop. “That is the best education available for each student. Our Negro parents are entitled to know that this is the test we apply, not a convenient location, a one-race enrollment, the sentimentality and attachment to a familiar school. If the archdiocese operates a high school, it must guarantee this high-quality education to all. When this coincides with the American ideal of an integrated school society, we cannot in conscience ignore these two factors.”

“We wish that we could establish a new integrated high school to serve equally the white and Negro residential areas in the south and southwest of the City. But the whole educational picture is shifting rapidly. We can simply promise that the best religious education possible will be available for all our Catholic young men and women,” the archbishop added.

At a meeting Tuesday at Drexel, parents of the students were invited to discuss the change with archdiocesan school officials. As an outgrowth of the discussion, the archbishop announced today that he is requesting a representative groups of parents to meet with him and members of the archdiocesan staff to work out details.