Hundreds of students from Northeast Catholic, commonly called North Catholic, blew air horns and yelled outside the school last night in exuberant defiance of the archdiocesan decree to close the schools at the end of the school year.

Erik Stankiewicz, president of the student body, said he was stunned.

"They had always talked about how it was going to close, but I never took it a hundred percent seriously," he said. "Everyone's affected by it, especially the juniors. I feel really sorry for them."

"I'm upset," said Anthony Samacicia, a junior at North Catholic, on Torresdale Avenue near Erie, in Frankford. "I don't know what to say."

Parents, though, said plenty.

Beth Wesolowski, mother of Zachary Abele, a North Catholic sophomore, blasted the decision.

"How can the aArchdiocese spend $65 million on a school in Royersford and close two schools in the city?" she asked. "It doesn't seem like they care about city schools at all."

"How can the Archdiocese expect these kids to go to church and sit in those pews if it's all about the money?" she added.

Parents at the rally worried about their kids' transition into other schools, whether their children would be able to play sports and how this would affect their college applications.

"They're going to be outcasts wherever they go," said Donna Donnelly, whose grandson attends North."Who is going to give them letters of recommendation?" she asked.

The Archdiocese said declining enrollments with students in "half-empty" buildings were the reasons Dougherty and North Catholic would be closed. North Catholic, which has a capacity for about 1,700 students, has only 551; 642 are enrolled at Dougherty, which can hold 2,000.

Last night at Dougherty, on 2nd Street near Godfrey Avenue, in Olney, parents attended a meeting that was supposed to answer their questions, but many left unsatisfied.

"It was sad - nothing was resolved," Karen Stitt, whose daughter, Ashley, is a Dougherty junior, said after the meeting. "We were wondering why they picked these two schools in the city."

"Why didn't the school merge with Northeast High?" she asked. "Seven hundred students now have to look at new schools, and most are overcrowded."

Earlier, Dougherty students said that when they were given official word that their school was closing, it "felt worse than a funeral."

"Everyone was crying," said Jasmine Urena, a 15-year-old sophomore. "We were all so upset."

Mariangely Negron, 15, said the seriousness of the closing "really didn't soak in," until yesterday morning, when students arrived at school shortly before 8 a.m. for a meeting with the school's president, the Rev. Carl F. Janick, and from Principal Thomas F. Rooney Jr.

"That's when a lot of tears just flowed," Urena said.

After listening to the letter from the Office of Catholic Education that said "the decision is final," "students and teachers all broke down in tears," Urena said.

Then, after a few minutes, the student body stood and started singing the school song, Negron said.

Taniya Mitchell, 16, and Ashley Stitt, 16, both juniors and cheerleaders, said they were agonizing about where they would go for their senior years.

"I don't want to graduate with strangers," said Stitt. "I love this school. I love coming to school.

"My father went to Dougherty, I'm going to Dougherty, and I wanted my children to go here some day," Stitt said.

Mitchell said she and Stitt were angry because as juniors, they've just ordered their class rings for their senior year.

"We're going to have rings that say Class of 2011," Stitt said, "but there won't be a Class of 2011."

Staff writer Jessica Yu contributed to this report.