After nearly two centuries, one of the first schools to open its doors in the Rio Grande Valley is getting ready to close them for good.

Officials at Incarnate Word Academy in Brownsville announced that a lack of money and enrollment is forcing the closure at the end of the current school year.

“This year — which marks 170 years of service to the church of Brownsville and Matamoros — will be the closing year of Incarnate Word Academy in Brownsville,” academy superior general Sister Annette Wagner said Friday. "Several years of tracking diminishing enrollment and income have led to the conclusion that maintaining our school is no longer possible."

The academy was the first school to open its doors in Brownsville. Officials say the Sisters of the Incarnate Word will stay within the Brownsville Diocese, and the advisory board president says they will work to get faculty and staff into other catholic schools.

Officials at the school say the planned academic year will continue as scheduled.