By Anna Guido
Enquirer contributor

LIBERTY TWP. - Growing enrollment has this community's only Catholic school looking to expand.

Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary wants to add 15,000 square feet - for new classrooms, a library and more parking, among other things - to its existing 11,000-square-foot facility at 6085 Jackie Drive.

The Cincinnati Archdiocese independent school - it has no parish affiliation - will ask Liberty Township trustees on Tuesday for a conditional use permit needed for the proposed expansion.

"We have a waiting list in just about every grade,'' said township resident Lynn Skinner, chairman of the school facilities committee. "New students are picked by lottery.''

Enrollment at Mother Teresa is 160. The school draws from several Butler and Warren county communities, including West Chester and Liberty townships, which continue to be among the fastest-growing communities in the Tristate.

Mother Teresa has classes for kindergarten through fifth grade. Skinner's son, Neil, 10, is a fifth-grader at the school. He was a kindergartner when the school opened in 1998 at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Monroe.

Mother Teresa's $1.5 million facility - on a 25-acre site off Millikin Road - opened in January 2001.

If the Liberty Township Board of Zoning Appeals approves the expansion, the school addition could be completed by this fall. Township zoning clerk Cara Killkelley said the $1.2 million proposed addition includes a wing for eight classrooms, a library, chapel, offices, restrooms, a parent drop-off lane and a 59-space parking lot.

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