To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

After three decades, the clock is running out for the El Bethel Academy in Westerleigh. The small Christian school will close its doors for good this month due to financial difficulties.

According to parents, nearly 40 students attended the elementary school, and some say they're still unsure where their children will go in the fall.

“I don't know,” said Felix Momoh, a Westerleigh parent. “We're still looking. Right now, we haven't got anything.”

El Bethel is just one of seven parochial schools across Staten Island that will shut down this June, displacing about 775 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade.

At Trinity Lutheran in Stapleton, 126 students have been forced to start over at a new school next year.

The Church's Council voted in favor of shutting down the 50-year-old struggling institution last December.

“Trinity has been around for so long,” said parent Nancy Hagans. “One of the reasons I moved here was because of Trinity.

Archdiocese of New York officials also said they had to make tough cuts in 2011 because of declining enrollment and financing problems.

Alumni fundraising efforts to save 94-year-old St. Peter's Girls' High School in New Brighton fell short, leaving 95 students looking for new options.

Other students and institutions face the same situation.

74 students at Saint Margaret Mary in Midland Beach will be displaced after the school closes, 96 students at Saint Roch in Port Richmond, 120 students at Saint Sylvester in Concord and 224 students at Saint Mary in Rosebank.

Some parents said it's sad to see so many of the Island's religious schools closing at one time, leaving many neighborhoods with fewer acceptable options.

“I've heard of kindergarten classes with 25, 30 kids,” said Karen Dellomo, a parent affected by the cuts. “She has 10 in her class with two teachers, and private schools are very expensive.”