Founded 90 years ago as a school run by the Religious of Jesus and Mary, the Villa Augustina was reborn this week as an independent Catholic school with parents at its helm.

“This year … we’ve all been holding our breath for so long, afraid that there might be no more Rosary Hall masses, basketball games, Saints’ processions or talent shows,” the Villa Augustina Leadership Transition Team wrote in a letter to parents earlier this week.

“We feared that June 30, 2008, might be the final day of the Villa’s long history. Instead, June 30 marked the Villa’s purchase and transfer to a new organization, and July 1 is the birthday of the Villa’s new life as a Catholic school that holds fast to its old, traditional mission of academic excellence and loving service.”

In a quiet, 20-minute ceremony on Monday, June 20, Carol Barrett, the chair of a new board of directors, signed the papers effecting the purchase of the school for $400,000 from the Religious of Jesus and Mary, which founded it nearly a century ago but is no longer able to support it.

“We’re sitting inside a very old school, but it’s a very new school simultaneously,” said Gary Bouchard, a spokesman for parents.

Parents want to preserve the heritage of the Religious of Jesus and Mary. Some members of the order will continue to work at the school, and the new legal name – the St. Claudine Villa Academy – is in honor of St. Claudine Thevenet, who founded the religious order at Lyons, France, in 1818.

But the Villa Augustina still will have to forge a new identity as an independent Catholic school – not affiliated with a religious order or parish and not integrated into the diocesan school system.

“For 90 years, we’ve been an RJM school,” Barrett said. “That’s how we’ve identified who we are, but now we’re something different.”

Yesterday, Barrett and her colleagues said they hoped their story would become an inspiration to other Catholic schools in the country facing closure.

Since 2000, more than 150 Catholic elementary, middle and high schools across the country have been shut down every year, according to the National Catholic Education Association. In New Hampshire, St. Albert’s School in West Stewartstown closed in 2003 and the St. Michael School in Berlin followed suit last year. Six months ago, all the signs pointed toward a similar fate for the Villa Augustina School, which has students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade.

In an emotional meeting with parents last December, representatives of the Religious of Jesus and Mary said their order was relinquishing control of the school, making its closure likely. Aside from financial difficulties, the order also said it was confronted with declining recruitment and an aging membership.

Parents pledged to do everything they could to save the school. “I think if we knew what we were getting into, it might have been overwhelming,” Barrett said.

The obstacles were formidable: parents would need to raise $400,000 to purchase the school and another half million or so for serious repairs, not to mention a litany of other logistical and legal hurdles.

“There were times when we were sitting there saying, ‘This isn’t going to happen,’” Barrett recalled.

Parents were able to buy the school building and surrounding 33 acres, thanks to a separate set of donations, including $100,000 again from an anonymous donor and a $100,000 gift from the monks of Saint Anselm College.

St. Mary’s Bank has loaned an additional $200,000 to the St. Claudine Villa Academy, the nonprofit corporation parents established to run the school.

Although the name technically has changed for legal reasons, the school will still be able to refer to itself as the Villa Augustina, according to the terms of the sale.