Students, parents, teachers fight for White Plains school with uncertain future

WHITE PLAINS (WABC) -- The Our Lady of Good Counsel Academy in White Plains has been around for almost a century, but now, the all-female school is facing an uncertain future.

Parents and students are demanding answers, even presenting the possibility of taking control themselves as the school entertains the idea of moving.

"My heart is like, it belongs here," student Michaella Phillips said. "It belongs here."

The school is run by an order of nuns called the Sisters of Divine Compassion, and by all accounts, the students love their school.

"I'm devastated," student Jessica McCabe said. "I don't want to see this school close at all."

The nuns have owned the property on North Broadway since 1890. It sits on 16 acres on the fringe of downtown, in other words, prime real estate for developers.

"The people here, the girls here, are like family," student Genesis Rivera said. "We all love each other. We all take care of each other."

The order has announced plans to sell the campus so it could continue to finance and carry out its mission. But there have been no specifics.

"As a parent, we're scrambling around because we're getting no word from the Order of Divine Compassion," parent Richie Raggo said. "Which makes you laugh at the word compassion, because they're showing no compassion to these young ladies."

One possibility being explored is relocating to New Rochelle, to a high school building that closed a few years ago.

"It would be a great inconvenience, because I take the train," student Christine Rutledge said. "A lot of us do. So it would be an inconvenience to go all the way up to New Rochelle for working parents who can't drive us."

Students and teachers have staged protests, and some parents have even proposed buying the building themselves as a way to keep it open. But the cloud of uncertainty hangs in the air.

"Their mission is to educate young women," teacher Matt Meyer said. "And as far as I can tell, they're just ignoring that mission, and they're accepting defeat and accepting that they're going to shut down the school."

Calls made by Eyewitness News weren't returned. In the meantime, students and parents vow to continue the fight to save their school.