LEWISTON – Trinity Catholic School parents, students and alumni are outraged at the firing of several teachers and have started a letter-writing campaign in hopes of getting the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to reverse the decision.

Seven teachers, including one with 34 years experience, were recently fired from the school. Administrators say the teachers were let go because enrollment has been declining and the school couldn’t afford to keep them.

“I think we made the appropriate decision,” said the Rev. Joseph Daniels, pastors’ delegate at the school.

But angry parents say officials got rid of some of their best, most dedicated teachers and refused to tell them why those people were dismissed. They said the close-knit Trinity school community was given little notice that some of their most-beloved, longest-serving teachers were being fired. And they believe the school plans to fill some of the positions left vacant by the firings. Daniels declined to comment on any hirings, saying that would be a private personnel matter.

Several parents called the situation “appalling.”

“There really is no justification for it, in my opinion,” said Lenny Cortellino, whose daughters have completed the fifth and eighth grades there.

Schools consolidated

Trinity was formed in the fall of 2006 with the merger of three area Catholic schools: Holy Cross and St. Joseph’s of Lewiston and St. Peter and Sacred Heart Elementary of Auburn. Trinity runs two campuses – an elementary school on Baird Avenue and a junior high school on Main Street. In 2006 it opened with about 600 students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. It currently has 477 students.

The school’s Web site listed 38 teachers for this past school year, including those for art, music and computer. The seven fired teachers represent 18 percent of the school’s teaching staff.

According to the site, tuition for 2009-10 will be $4,200 for full-time pre-K, $2,300 for K-8 for parish families and $3,650 for K-8 for all others. Daniels said the school increased tuition by $300 for the coming year, but it would have needed to raise tuition another $800 to $1,000 or would have needed to enroll 150 additional students to keep all of its teachers. He said the school didn’t want to fire teachers, but it was overstaffed and couldn’t burden its families with such a high tuition rate.

“It’s very sad,” he said. “No one wants to not renew the contracts of teachers in very difficult economic times.”

Calling it a personnel issue, Daniels declined to say why those seven teachers were chosen.

Some parents and alumni believe at least a few of the teachers were fired because of personality conflicts with the school’s principal, Paul Yarnevich.

He said he did not make the final decision regarding the firings, but he declined to comment further. He referred all questions to the Portland diocese, which oversees the school.

Catholic Schools Superintendent Sister Rosemary Donohue was out of state Friday and could not be reached for comment.

At a school board meeting last week, 50 to 70 people filled Trinity’s junior high school to protest the firings. The board has no official power and does not deal with hiring or firing teachers, but parents, students and alumni said they wanted someone to hear them.

Favorites inspired students

Over and over, people told tearful stories of their favorite – now fired – teachers and the effect they’d had on their lives.

Rachel Spilecki was one of those speakers. Spilecki and her sister attended St. Joseph’s and were students of Pandora Lawler, one of the fired teachers. Spilecki said Lawler inspired her love of reading and compassion for others. She said Lawler gave her an academic foundation on which she built her high school success – to become valedictorian.

“I wouldn’t be the student I am today without Mrs. Lawler,” she said.

Spilecki and others are writing letters to Donohue and the diocese in support of the fired teachers. Many letters ask the diocese to rehire the teachers.

School board member and parent Peter Bolduc is circulating a petition calling on the diocese to bestow more power on the school board. He likened the diocese to a dictatorship that asks for its people’s support and money but gives them no say in how things are run.

“We have a legless, voiceless school board,” Bolduc said. “If that’s the case, why have a school board? It’s a joke.”

He said he’s been unhappy and frustrated with the school and the diocese for a while, but with the firings, “things came to a head.”

Although he wasn’t familiar with every teacher who was fired, he said he knew one thing: “There are some good teachers that should still be there.”

‘Blind faith’

Many people say Lawler is one of those teachers. She attended St. Joseph’s as a girl, sent her own children to the school and was an elementary teacher there and at Trinity for a combined 34 years. She is appealing her firing to the diocese.

Because of that appeal, Lawler declined to comment, except to say, “That building, that school, was my life.”

Errol Parker was a computer teacher at the school, working for 10 years at St. Joseph’s and Trinity. Although he believes the school lied to him about its reasons for letting him and the others go, he’s not appealing.

His contract, he said, allows the diocese to fire him without cause.

“You sign that contract in blind faith that they’ll be at least human about it,” he said,

The Maine diocese has been struggling with declining membership and financial problems. Local Catholic leaders have discussed closing churches. There has also been discussion of moving Trinity’s junior high school to St. Dominic Regional High School in Auburn.