A new Brooklyn Catholic high school is opening next week, during a time when many Catholic schools in the area are closing.

According to Lourdes Academy High School president Maureen Reiser, the school mixes school with a work-study program. Some freshmen will spend at least one school day a week working at a business.

?They are not only ninth-graders entering their freshman year in high school, but they are now employees entering a new job,? Reiser says.

Reiser says the businesses pay the school. That money is then used to help pay students? tuition. Reiser says when so many Catholic schools in the area closing, this opening and opportunity is a blessing.

Lourdes Academy will start this year with only a freshman class of about 48 students. It will then add one grade a year for the next three years.