“Archdiocese tries new tack on schools”
In the first test of a new strategy for revitalizing urban Catholic schools, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley announced yesterday that, with the help of wealthy donors and a local college, he will replace the last three parochial schools in this city with one regional school located in two refurbished buildings.
Archdiocesan officials said the Brockton effort—an attempt to respond to declining enrollment, inadequate financing, and older buildings—is a model that the church also looks to implement in Dorchester and Lowell.
The model, in which a regionalized Catholic school will be governed by a local board of trustees approved by O’Malley, is a break with the decentralized system of parish-financed parochial schools that has characterized Catholic education in much of the United States for more than a century.
The figure I’ve heard bandied about is that the minimum enrollment for a viable Catholic school in this area is 180. When you drop below that number, the tuition is no longer enough to guarantee a certain quality of education, thus driving more students away. Unfortunately, too many Catholic parochial schools in older parts of the archdiocese are falling below those numbers. The new plan will allow them to consolidate for added vitality and strength. It’s unfortunate that parish-based, locally controlled schools are being replaced in these areas because there is value in that, but this is better than the alternative which is no schools.
“The schools have low enrollment and don’t have enough resources, but we are confident that by bringing the schools together and sharing resources and by fund-raising and marketing together, that we’re going to be able to strengthen the enrollment and to do the kind of staff development that we need to do and to have the facilities that are modern and with the kind of technology and the other needs that education has today,” the archbishop said .
Technorati Tags:Boston, Catholic, education, parochial, school
Consolidating schools is unfortunate in low-income areas where transportation is an issue but in our K-8 school, we had many students from surrounding towns. Makes for a ton of traffic but enrollment is up over 400 students.
The Trenton, NJ diocese has been doing this for a few years now. They waffle on the Magic Number though—closing a school of 200 but leaving open a school with 120….End result of closing my kids’ school (the one with 200) meant that after they graduated 38, of the remaining 162 only 10 kids went to the regional school, 20 or so went to “other, nonregional Catholic schools” (still parish-based but at different, more distant parishes) and ALL THE REST wound up in public schools. They kept less than 50% in the Catholic school system.
It’s like mourning a death, right now—and they’re starting on parishes now that they’re done killing schools.
It is a shame that local parishes are loosing this involvement and sense of ownership, and it is certainly true that when they transition to a regional school model many kids don’t move into the regional school system. However, the fact is that many parish schools don’t have the resources to maintain a staff of academic and orthodox quality. Especial as regards orthodoxy, if parish schools aren’t teach the Catholic faith what business has the Church in secular education?
Hopefully, regional schools will attain high levels of academic excellence and also maintain orthodoxy in a way many parish schools do not.
This being said, while pastors and parishes aren’t directly responsible for the opperation of regional schools, there is no reason that they can’t or shouldn’t have an active role in these schools. If the parish actively promotes Catholic education, possibly by offering subsides to parishoners who want to send their children, and the schools themselves are of high quality, then any Catholic parent to embraces their duty to educate their children in the faith will consider these schools as alternatives.