By New York Metropolis Council Majority Chief Amanda Farías, New York State Meeting Member Michael Benedetto and New York State Senator Nathalia Fernandez
Posted on March 28, 2025
Preston Excessive Faculty is anticipated to completely shut in June after the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, who personal the location, turned down a proposal from Bally’s philanthropic basis to purchase the property and maintain the varsity open.
File picture courtesy of Preston Excessive Faculty
We have been deeply disillusioned to study that the Sisters of the Divine Compassion rejected the beneficiant and well timed provide from Bally’s Basis North America to buy the Preston Excessive Faculty property, successfully halting efforts to avoid wasting this beloved establishment.
The Bronx Instances article precisely highlights our collective shock and frustration on the Sisters’ unexplained determination, regardless of the inspiration’s willingness to pay $8.5 million—matching the Sisters’ unique asking worth—and to lease the property again to Preston for simply $1 per yr.
As native elected officers, together with Majority Chief Amanda Farías—a proud 2007 Preston graduate — Meeting Member Michael Benedetto and Senator Nathalia Fernandez, we now have diligently explored each attainable resolution on the metropolis and state degree to maintain Preston open. We examined funding choices via NYCEDC, metropolis and state sources and even engaged immediately with the New York Lawyer Common’s Workplace and the Charities Bureau to assist navigate potential paths ahead towards independence for the varsity.
The Bally’s Basis proposal represented an optimum and practical alternative to protect the academic legacy Preston Excessive Faculty gives generations of younger girls within the Bronx, making the Sisters’ rejection of the provide all of the extra perplexing.
We stand alongside the over 10,000 petition signers—alumni, mother and father, college students and group members — who nonetheless search solutions and transparency. Our group deserves readability about why this viable resolution was dismissed, and we proceed to advocate strongly for accountability and transparency from the Sisters of the Divine Compassion and Preston’s Board of Trustees.
