Church College of New Zealand, a private secondary school with 700 pupils and 113 faculty and staff, is not admitting new students for the 2007 school year and will cease operations at the completion of the school year in November 2009.

The decision follows LDS policy to get out of the education business once local systems can provide for members' needs. Over the years, the church has closed its schools in Indonesia, Chile, Tahiti, American Samoa and Mexico for the same reason, while the church still operates 17 private schools outside the U.S. - two in Fiji, one in Kiribati, four in Samoa, eight in Tonga and two in Mexico.

By all accounts, New Zealand's educational system is among the best in the region, making the Mormon school unnecessary.

"The incalculable good emanating from The Church College of New Zealand over the past half-century is plainly seen in its positive impact on individual lives, the local communities and The Church of Jesus Christ [of Latter-day Saints] in New Zealand," LDS general authority Paul Johnson told faculty and students earlier this month. "This influence for good will spread to future generations by those fortunate enough to have been associated with this great institution." Mormons in the area, many of whom attended or helped build the school, greeted the news with mixed emotions.

"A lot of the people are feeling a little shocked," said Selwyn Katene, a Mormon bishop in Wellington who is a senior manager in the country's ministry of health. "Still, it is seen as an inspired move."

Like so many others, Katene has a personal connection to the college. His parents were among hundreds of Latter-day Saints called on "labor missions" in the 1950s to work voluntarily on the temple and school.

"They sacrificed seven years of their professional lives to this building effort," he said in a phone interview. "They had high expectations that the college would continue forever."

Katene and his wife, Rahui Hippolite Katene, attended Church College and are, what he calls, "success stories" - they both went on to the university, where he earned a doctorate and she got a law degree.

"For us, going to Church College was a very positive experience, partly because of the American teachers (and church members) who urged me to stay in school," he says. "We look back with fond memories."

Many church members in outlying areas either sent their children to the Church College as a boarding school or moved the whole family to Hamilton so their children could attend as day students. Either way, the school ended up draining the branches of the LDS Church outside Hamilton and Auckland.

"Hopefully, a lot of those people will go home and build the church in those outlying areas," Katene said.

The school was known for producing basketball and baseball stars, but not for its academic excellence, Katene said. And it was a huge drain on the church's finances in New Zealand. The school charged a small tuition but expenses were heavily subsidized by the church.

Within decades of arriving in Utah, Mormon pioneers turned their attention to education. Between 1875 and 1910, the church established 33 academies for secondary education in Utah and the Intermountain West as well as Canada and Mexico.

"The [LDS] Church's schooling enterprises arose in response to concerns over the secularization of the schools, the need for trained teachers for public schools and trained leadership in the church, LDS youth's participation in other denominational schools and youth leaving home for their schooling," wrote Harold Laycock in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. "The curriculum provided basic academic subjects with an emphasis on vocational and cultural fields, including mechanical and agricultural skills, gymnastics, homemaking, vocal music and art."

Finding ways to educate its people became equally important as Mormonism set up branches in far-flung regions of the world.

Mormon missionaries arrived in New Zealand on Oct. 27, 1854, a mere two decades after the church was founded in upstate New York. They first approached the European populations on the South Island largely because the missionaries couldn't speak Maori. By 1880, though, Mormon leaders visited the Maori settlement near Auckland on the North Island. Maori leaders seemed very open to the Mormon message and within five years 1,038 of the 1,238 members in the country were Maoris. In 1889, the Book of Mormon was translated into Maori.

The church established its first public school, the Maori Agricultural College, in 1913. It was thriving until 1931 when an earthquake destroyed it and it wasn't rebuilt.

LDS Apostle Matthew Cowley, a former missionary to New Zealand who presided over the Mormons in the country from 1945 to 1953, created countrywide sports programs, including basketball, baseball and softball teams, all organized, coached and refereed by full-time Mormon missionaries.

Finally, the church had a large enough membership - 17,000 - to sustain a temple and an adjacent school to help educate its members who came mostly from rural areas without adequate schools. That's when the labor missionaries were called.

Since then, at least 10 percent of all members sent their children to Church College. LDS President Spencer W. Kimball visited New Zealand twice as did President Gordon B. Hinckley, who spoke at church conferences in 1997 and again in 2003.

By 2003, the LDS Church had become the sixth-largest religion in New Zealand, with 93,840 members residing in 25 stakes.

Closing Church College of New Zealand was "an agonizing, multiyear decision which has been made at the highest levels of [LDS] administration. President Hinckley visited the school himself three years ago to make a personal evaluation," Rolfe Kerr, the LDS Church's Commissioner of Education, told the school's faculty. "The decision is sad in many ways, but it is the right one and will allow the [LDS] Church to bless others in parts of the world where the need is greater."

There is no talk of selling or razing the school building, Katene said.

It would make a great place for college-level instruction, much like Brigham Young University-Hawaii or BYU-Idaho, he said. "From day one, the site has been a sacred, hallowed area. From my perspective, it should continue to be an educational institution and it could be adapted to a higher level."

pstack@sltrib.com

Primary and secondary schools owned and operated by the LDS Church:

* PACIFIC

Fiji:

Fiji LDS Church College

LDS Primary School

Kiribati:

Moroni High School

New Zealand:

Church College of New Zealand (closing announced)

Samoa:

Church College of Western Samoa

Church College of Savaii-Vaiola

Vaiola Primary School

Sauniatu Primary School

Tonga:

Liahona High School

Liahona Middle School

Havelu Middle School

Pakilau Middle School

Eua Middle School

Ha'apai Middle School

Saineha High School

Saineha Middle School

* MEXICO:

Colonia Juarez Academia

Benemerito School

Source: LDS Church