Roseland school district negotiating to buy former Ursuline campus

Roseland Public Schools is in negotiations to buy the former Ursuline High School campus in north Santa Rosa from the religious order that owns the property.

District officials are working on a purchase agreement for the site, which they’ve leased since opening Roseland Collegiate Prep there five years ago. The charter school, which started with ?60 seventh-graders in two classrooms, has grown to 335 students after the district added a grade level each year, Superintendent Amy Jones-Kerr said. This fall, the school will welcome its first senior class.

“As we grew, we kept assuming more of the facility,” she said.

That costs more and requires the district to renegotiate its lease each year. Last year, it spent $230,000 on rent and maintenance, compared to $114,000 in the first year, said Gina Stieb, the district’s charter business manager.

She declined to disclose the potential purchase price because the agreement hasn’t been finalized.

It is more practical for the district to purchase the former girls Catholic school run by the Sisters of Ursuline than to renegotiate the contract every year, Jones-Kerr said.

The sisters of the Ursuline Corp., who operate under the Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union, United States, own 57 acres of wooded land that houses both the school buildings and meeting space and retreat facilities. It closed its 130-year-old parochial school in 2011 after declining enrollment.

Sister Christine Van Swearingen welcomed the sale, saying Ursuline’s legacy will live on in the Roseland charter school. She said the charter school emphasizes service and social justice, principles her religious order shares, while providing a high-quality education to underserved families.

“That’s really important, particularly as Santa Rosa and the wider area becomes more economically challenged,” she said.

District officials expect to finalize an agreement and acquire the property by the end of the summer.