When I came downstairs for breakfast this morning, I saw
that Mike had set aside the front page of the paper for me and placed it by my
chair, which he always does for any Catholic news items.
"Holy Angels is closing. It's a big story."
We live in an area of former growth from Italian and
Polish immigrants. As you can imagine, that means that there are a lot of
Catholics here. Consequently, you can't do a hip bump without running into a
Catholic parish or school. Well, at least you *used to*.
In recent years, our bishop had the highly unpopular task
of getting the diocese into better financial shape by closing parishes and
schools. This was necessary because of significant population shift. We live in
the Rust Belt. People have moved south and west, and the people that have
stayed have shifted from the city to the suburbs. So all of these beautiful
100+ year old church buildings and schools were closed, and naturally people
were very upset about it. Our parish's school closed three years ago. It had
been open since 1897. As devastating as that is, I can understand that you
can't keep a school open when there are only 80 children enrolled in the school
populating grades pre-k through 8. It's just not financially tenable.
Most recently, it's the Catholic elementary schools that
were hit the hardest. Four K-8 schools closed just in our immediate township
and the neighboring city border. So far Hank's school has been spared, and
we're praying it stays that way.
Holy Angels, on the other hand, is the first high school
casualty that I know if. It's a Catholic girls high school in the city
(including a fairly new prep school division for girls in grades 6-8), and
interestingly it's not under the control of the diocese. It was founded by the
Gray Nuns of the Sacred Heart and has been supported by them for the past *152
years*. They have donated an astonishing amount of money from their retirement
fund and sold property in an effort to save the school, and it looks like it
wasn't enough. The school principal and president has stated that declining
enrollment is the death knell, due mostly to the closing of two of it's
"feeder schools" and general economic recession/fundraising problems.
There is also a lot of competition. There are multiple
Catholic high schools in this area, many of which are single sex like Holy
Angels. There is a Catholic boys high school a stone's throw from our house
that we're hoping to send Hank to (prayers for scholarships much appreciated :))
and two girls high schools for us to choose from for Anne. So if your child's
elementary school closed and you chose another one further away, you are
probably more likely to then look at the high schools nearer to your new
elementary school since your child will want to stay with their friends.
It's a toughie. I hate to see a school like this close,
one that was a charism for a religious order. I saw lots of talk about it on
Facebook this morning, interestingly. Alumni and graduates of other local
Catholic schools broken up by it.
This phenomena is not isolated in the Catholic schools,
however. I read an article in the newspaper this weekend about our public
school district. They just finished an assessment of the entire district and
have about a half dozen options for what they're going to do in the coming
years to save money and address their own declining enrollment. Almost
certainly, some school buildings will close and children will be consolidated
into other schools. In at least 3 of these options, the public elementary
school down the street from us (where Hank went to kindergarten) will either
close or become a building housing only a select few grades. In one option,
children would have to change school buildings every 2-3 years! Even though
we're in constant fundraising paranoia over in the Catholic schools, I think
that overall we're in a better situation.
In fact, this upcoming public school consolidation make cause some
parents to send their children to a Catholic school instead. And of course,
we'd love to pick up more students, I'm just sorry to see the public district
suffering and struggling. Teachers will be laid off, it's going to be very
unpleasant. :(
We've got Henry all registered for third grade at his
current Catholic school. The school picked up some students this year from the
latest Catholic elementary school to close, and I'm hoping this means that they
will stay in business. There are two other robust Catholic K-8 schools right in
our township, so competition is steep. I prefer Hank's current school; it's
smaller and warmer, but that comes at the price of the fundraising paranoia
mentioned above.
We'll have to see what happens, but Catholic education is
certainly feeling worried right now.
I remember talking to my father and to a family friend, both of whom went to Catholic parochial and high schools. My father went for FREE K-8 simply because his family were members of the parish. My friend's parents were charged $3/year for their first kid, $2/year for their second kid, and $1/year for their youngest. Of course, they were taught by nuns, and, quite simply, nuns were almost free labor. The parish paid the order enough to keep the convent repaired and the nuns in habits, food, books and medical care, and though that did add up, it was PENNIES compared to what paying a staff costs. I've been saying for years that now that there are so many solid new contemplative orders, we really need some new orders founded whose charism is teaching.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side...in MS I had three choices public down the road, private prep school on the way to my parent's office, or Catholic school in another county I could catch a bus at my parish at 6 in the morning. The next closest Catholic school was hours away. So really my only choice was public. I envy people who have choice. For preschool my only choice was a Baptist one.
ReplyDeleteThe bright side is now there's a Catholic preschool at my parents parish.
The (socio-economic and racially diverse) town in which I grew up had a switch-every-two-years set up for elementary school and it wasn't problematic for us at all (in fact, we found graduating to a new school every couple of years exciting). It was set up intentionally long before I started school in hopes of alleviating the problems they were having once kids from different neighborhood schools were all put together in middle and high school. It worked! We were with the same diverse group of kids from kindergarten until 12th grade and we didn't suffer from the kind of violence that plagued the school system before this arrangement was implemented. I suppose this is because 5 year olds are inherently more flexible and open than tweens.
ReplyDelete