COVINGTON — The Diocese of Covington is merging three Campbell County schools in response to declining enrollment, its first school merger in 14 years.

        The last time the diocese merged schools was in 1988, when Bishop Howard and St. Benedict became Holy Family in Covington.

        Holy Spirit in Newport, St. Bernard in Dayton and St. Michael in Bellevue will become Holy Trinity School when the school year begins Aug. 21. The new school, operating from separate locations in Bellevue and Newport, has 300 registered students so far.

        Lawrence Bowman, director for Catholic education and the superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Covington, said the merger is occurring because of “demographic changes.”

        Census figures show that the three cities each saw a drop in population between 1990 and 2000 — 6,997 to 6,480 in Bellevue; 6,576 to 5,966 in Dayton; and 18,871 to 17,048 in Newport.

        “The other part of it is financial. It's very costly to run four buildings, so we will take those four buildings down to two,” said Sister Mary Ruth Lubbers, principal at Holy Spirit in Newport, which operates from two locations.

        “I think that it's a good thing. We can offer the students something maybe we couldn't offer in our three schools right now because of smallness in numbers,” said Sister Mary Ruth, who will become the principal of the junior high school in Newport.

        Sister Mary Luke Murphy will be the principal of the elementary school in Bellevue.

        For registration information, call Holy Spirit, 292-0487 or 431-8745; St. Michael, 291-6937; or St. Bernard, 581-6759.

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