This Philly Catholic school, which lost everything in a fire, is already planning its future

When the fire that tore through Our Mother of Consolation Parish School on Tuesday was extinguished, at first there was relief: Everyone had gotten out safely; only one firefighter suffered minor injuries.

And then, the gravity of the situation hit Patricia Sheetz, principal of the Chestnut Hill Catholic school.

Though the bones of the historic, 140-year-old stone structure likely won’t need to be torn down, everything inside the school is unusable. Every textbook and computer, all the classroom accoutrements that educators spent decades assembling, each crayon and pencil and ruler and workbook will need to be replaced.

» READ MORE: A three-alarm fire at a Chestnut Hill Catholic school is under control

In the short term, the school, with 230 children in preschool through eighth grade, is closed. Sheetz is finalizing details on a temporary space and hopes to resume classes as soon as possible, but she’s also allowing herself a little time to mourn what was lost.

“It’s heartbreaking — to think of the little kids and their artwork, their musical instruments, notes they’ve written to us, that’s all gone,” said Sheetz, who has been principal for five years.

The fire began at about 3:40 p.m. Tuesday, on the roof of the school on East Chestnut Hill Avenue. It quickly grew to a three-alarm blaze that required the response of 120 fire personnel. Authorities are still investigating its cause.

Sheetz is profoundly glad the fire happened on a beautiful day. The children who otherwise would have been inside at OMC’s after-school program were outside playing and able to get to safety quickly.

“A neighbor offered to take children in the house, with the teachers, to get them away so they didn’t have to stand there watching the fire,” said Sheetz. “It was truly a blessing.”

In a letter to the OMC community, Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez said his heart dropped when he heard of the fire. But, he said, “While this is a difficult time, it is not one of despair. Much work has already been done to provide for the educational needs of school families and to ensure safety on the grounds of the parish.”

Indeed, even as firefighters still battled the flames, Sheetz’s phone was ringing with offers of help from other schools, from the archdiocese itself. People have offered classrooms and supplies. In just a few days, other schools — some of them in communities less resourced than Chestnut Hill, a fact that is not lost on the staff — have held fundraisers and promised more.

“It is just an amazing, beautiful community,” Sheetz said. “The neighborhood, alumni, people who were teachers or principals in the past, all came by, just to hug me, to offer support.”

The staff realizes how traumatic the fire was for students. Parents have Sheetz’s cell phone number and an open offer to call if their children want reassurance from their principal.

“It’s really important that we see this through their eyes, how worried the children are, to comfort them, to let them say, ‘This was scary,’” said Sheetz, who also led OMC through COVID-19. “And to tell them, ‘We’re still here for you.’”

Sheetz and her staff are focused on keeping things as normal as possible for students under the circumstances.

The school’s upper grades kept their pre-scheduled class trip, traveling to Eastern State Penitentiary on Friday. An impromptu meet-and-greet with teachers and students cropped up Wednesday, with Jenks Academy of Arts and Sciences, the nearby Philadelphia School District school, offering its space for OMC to gather.

With all the school’s materials and technology lost, virtual instruction isn’t possible. Sheetz wants to make sure that when learning resumes, it’s at the same standard that always has been maintained by OMC, which won the coveted U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon of Excellence distinction in 2015.

“We want to make sure we do things right,” Sheetz said. She said on Friday that she expects to have an announcement on a temporary location imminently.

Once investigators complete their work and the church’s insurance company is able to assess the situation, Sheetz will have a better idea of details, but she’s operating under the assumption that the building won’t be usable for the rest of this academic year and for all of the 2023-24 school year.

The school had already been working on a fundraising campaign for its 160th anniversary — OMC first opened a school in 1862, and began operating in its current building in 1881. And though its sturdy stone construction fared well in the fire, the old building already had significant capital needs.

Now, the need for fundraising is even more important, said Allie Dolan, mother of four OMC students and president of the Home and School Association.

“We’re so grateful for the resources that are heading our way in this short time, but we have a really long road ahead,” Dolan said.

And, she said, there’s an opportunity to think about what an OMC education should look like moving forward, and how the school might use its space differently.

It feels good to galvanize the community outpouring into forward motion, Dolan said.

“There’s a lot of layers of connection to our building — we were all just devastated at first; it felt like COVID again,” she said. “But by the second day, we were able to embrace OMC is more than a building. It’s the people, it’s the sense of inclusiveness. That’s been bolstering all of us.”