Two west suburban Catholic grade schools will close this summer, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced Thursday.

       St. Frances of Rome School in Cicero and St. Odilo School in Berwyn will close their doors in June after the conclusion of the academic year.

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       School and church leaders said the expiration of the Invest in Kids tax credit scholarship program in the fall left the schools facing a financial cliff with more than half of students at the schools relying on the program to attend.

       The program expired in November after state lawmakers adjourned during the final week of the General Assembly’s last session without taking up a proposal to extend it beyond Dec. 31.

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       Invest in Kids prompted fierce debate over the merits of what some equate to the politically volatile school choice voucher program. While supporters say the tax credit gave children in low-income families a shot at a better education, opponents argued it failed to adequately benefit those kids and chipped away at public education.

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       “More than half the students at our two schools rely on these scholarships. These are hardworking families who want a Catholic education for their children,” said the Rev. Bartholomew Juncer, pastor of St. Odilo School.

       Between the two schools, 164 students attended through the tax credit scholarship program, the archdiocese said. The schools have been opened for a combined 196 years.

       “While we have navigated tight budgets in the past, the loss of the scholarship program has created an insurmountable gap,” the Rev. Radek Jaszczuk, pastor of St. Frances of Rome School, said in a news release.

       Across the archdiocese, 5,000 low-income families attend private Catholic schools through the scholarship program, which provides more than $25 million in aid, the archdiocese said.

       Greg Richmond, superintendent of the Archdiocese of Chicago school system, said Catholic schools are academically strong and have support among families, but he urged state lawmakers to reconsider extending the tax credit scholarship program to help keep the schools’ doors open.

       “In this situation, trying to sustain four schools would have jeopardized all of them in the future,” Richmond said in a release. “We are doing all that we can to keep our schools open, but the loss of the scholarship program will hurt. These may not be the last closures in our archdiocese.”

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       Families at the schools have been encouraged to enroll in the two remaining archdiocesan schools in the area, St. Leonard School in Berwyn and Our Lady of Charity School in Cicero.

       Invest in Kids was signed into law by Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2017. It gave individuals and corporations a 75% tax credit, capped at $1 million, on donations to private school scholarships. Total annual credits were capped at $75 million. Various nonprofits process the applications and distribute the money.

       aguffey@chicagotribune.com

       Originally Published: Jan 18, 2024 at 6:10 pm