Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna is pushing pause on operations for the 2025-2026 school year.
The board of directors of the Christian private school made the decision a few weeks ago to suspend programming as of the end of June.
“We’re not going to be offering any classes for this fall,” said CEO Chris Harms, noting it was a difficult decision but one that has been looming for some months now. “It was kind of the last resort. The hope was to continue forward.
“Lots of effort has been put into reducing tuition, finding people to cover the costs of transportation, some of those types of things, hoping to give a boost for enrolment,” he said. “But we just weren’t able to commit to moving forward. There wasn’t enough interest or commitment in the community for us to do that.”
MCI had 45 students enrolled in classes this year. Two decades ago, the school had 195 students.
“It’s been a slow, continual decline from then until now,” Harms said, noting some years they’ve dropped by as many as 30-50 students, but in recent years it’s been a much more gradual decrease.
The school has been in operation since 1889, offering an Anabaptist-rooted education to Gr. 9-12 students.
It’s owned by a collection of churches, many of whom are have an aging membership, Harms said.
“Many of the churches that are left remaining have seen similar decreases in attendance, a decrease in young families with prospective students,” he said, citing it as a contributing factor to MCI’s enrolment struggles.
And even as enrolment has dipped, expenses have continued to rise.
“Tuition has not gone up at the same pace that costs have,” Harms said. “And in order to keep tuition from not climbing dramatically, it did require an increase in donations to make that happen.”
The decision to close the doors affects over two dozen staff, both teachers and administrative workers.
Harms said the focus now is on deciding next steps.
“Our board of directors is the one that made the decision to pause operations, and so that triggers a meeting of the [church] delegates,” he explained. “They’ve got a meeting planned in early July where they’ll look at the future of the organization and what does that look like.
“I ask that the community would continue to pray for wisdom for the leadership group that’s going to have to make decisions and work through this process.”
