Task force designing proactive plan to solve challenges

For Betsy Reed there has never been any question about where she would send her four children to school.

One of seven siblings, Reed grew up in a Catholic home in which God was an important part of her daily life. Due to her father’s job transfers, she attended 10 schools in cities from Massachusetts to California by the time she was in high school, and much of her life was spent saying good-bye to friends. Knowing God was the one constant.

Now a mother of four and a teacher at Our Lady of Grace School in West Sacramento, Reed has two children attending Catholic colleges, a son who is a junior at Jesuit High School in Carmichael and a daughter in sixth grade at Holy Spirit School in Sacramento.

To fund Catholic education for her children, she has now taken a second job working at a local restaurant to supplement her family’s income while her husband recovers from a job loss.

“I wanted roots for my children, going to school communities where they would have a sense of friendship, a faith-based outlook on life,” Reed said. “Knowing God will help them prepare for the world they live in.”

Making Catholic education affordable for families like the Reeds is just one of the challenges being met head on by the diocesan Catholic School Department’s Financing Schools Task Force.

Formed in August 2001, the task force’s short range goal, now complete, was to train the most financially-challenged elementary schools to balance their budgets for the 2003-2004 school year.

The task force’s mandate now is to assist diocesan schools in developing long-range plans to address such issues as escalating costs, shifting demographics and declining enrollment.

“We’re addressing the present realities facing our schools at this time as well as the projected realities in the next five years,” said Dominic Puglisi, superintendent of Catholic schools for the diocese.

To this end, the task force held four regional meetings in November with pastors, principals, school advisory commissions, and representatives of parish and school finance councils from 47 Catholic elementary schools and four diocesan high schools. Task force member Marti Geiger, president of the Diocesan School Board, said now is the time to act aggressively.

“We need to be training ourselves to face the future, to take control instead of reacting to what happens,” she said. “We need to determine the paradigm we have to go through to be operationally sound to meet the needs of families and address financial issues.”

Topping the list of challenges for Catholic schools in the diocese, with a total enrollment of approximately 17,000 students, is balancing tuition to meet the increased cost of staffing comprehensive school programs and to avoid declining enrollment.

Puglisi said that any discussion of the cost of education in Catholic schools needs to begin with an understanding of the gap between tuition and the cost of educating each child. The current annual cost to educate a child in a Catholic elementary school in the diocese is between $4,200 and $4,500.

“When a parent sends a child to a school whose tuition is $3,000, they are automatically receiving financial assistance of $1,200 to $1,500,” he noted.

While the diocese provides financial support to elementary and high schools in the form of subsidies and scholarships — about $7 million from July 1998 to June 2003 — elementary schools traditionally rely on their parish communities for funding.

Sister Arlene Connelly, principal of Holy Family School in Citrus Heights, has been involved in Catholic education in the diocese for nearly 50 years. In that time, she said, the makeup of elementary schools has changed dramatically.

“When I started out, children in a designated area went to their parish school,” said Sister Connelly, a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary religious community. “Of the students attending Holy Family today, 55 percent are from the parish and 45 percent are from about 15 feeder parishes, some of whom have schools and some do not.”

She said parents’ reasons for selecting a Catholic elementary school education for their children now include looking at the benefits of enrolling in a school that is on a parent’s commute to work or provides a pre-school program along with whether the school is located in their parish community.

While Holy Family has a two-tier tuition plan, one for parishioners and another for non-parishioners, who pay approximately $150 more per child, Sister Connelly said meeting escalating per-pupil cost may require a hike in tuition down the line.

“We are at a crossroads. All of us need to decide if schools are important to the church at large,” she said. “I have to run a school with over 600 children from several parishes that need to decide how they are supporting schools.”

Jeff Meith, a member of Mercy Catholic High School’s advisory commission, attended a regional task force meeting held in Red Bluff. Meith, a member of St. John the Baptist Parish in Chico, has one child enrolled at Mercy in Red Bluff and one at Notre Dame School in Chico. He said one major issue addressed at the regional meeting was serving the vast geographic area from which students come to attend Mercy, including parish communities in Chico, Corning and Orland.

“Mercy spends $120,000 in transportation alone — approximately 10 percent of its budget,” said Meith, who sees student growth as a positive that requires an equal growth in financial funding.

It’s his view that Catholic school populations in rural areas need to have a plan to absorb the cost of providing quality Catholic education to students.

Puglisi said the same issue was discussed at other regional meetings. One suggestion that was offered would involve establishing an annual diocesan-wide collection at Masses in all parishes to benefit Catholic schools.

Participants in the task force meetings also took a close look at what parents in 2004 see as the necessary components of a Catholic education. While the spiritual growth of children is inherent in the mission of Catholic schools, studies by the National Catholic Educational Association over the last seven years indicate education in the faith has moved from the most common reason for parents selecting a Catholic education for their children to second or third behind a strong academic program and a safe environment.

“Today our Catholic schools are seen more as an academic factory...but everything we do in our schools deals with Gospel values and the spiritual growth of our children,” Puglisi said.

Stephanie Jones, vice-principal at Holy Family School, who began her career as a Catholic school teacher and administrator more than 30 years ago, has observed firsthand what has been labeled a “consumer mentality” among parents.

“In the 1960s, no one school shopped,” said Jones, who first noticed the phenomenon in the 1980s. “By the 1990s it was every place.”

She said that Catholic schools have what it takes to remain competitive in any case.

“We have a value-centered education, many specialty fine arts classes, our children achieve... and we pride ourselves in providing a healthy atmosphere,” Jones said. “We’re here to give parents a choice.”

Sister Connelly contends that the consumer mentality among parents is “not all bad.”

“Our parents want to learn the faith with their children,” said Sister Connelly, who has observed a larger number of parents who did not attend Catholic schools or who are not Catholic choosing Catholic education for their children.

One parent who shares her view is Meith, who points out that parents are consumers faced with many bills, and when paying $4,000 to $6,000 for tuition, should be expected to ask questions.

“What we need to do is look for better ways of supporting our schools so they can best serve the needs,” he said.

Declining enrollment is a challenge for the majority of Catholic elementary schools, with exceptions in some suburban Sacramento-area schools and in areas of Solano County. Contributing factors include changing demographics of parishes, rising tuition and competition from public and charter schools.

“As a diocese, we need to find more ways to market our schools to the Catholic population, but schools themselves need to understand they are in competition and market themselves,” according to Geiger.

Puglisi said faith formation classes in parishes are one rich resource from which to recruit students to Catholic schools.

Sam Mudd, a member of Sacred Heart Parish in Red Bluff, has a seventh grader attending Sacred Heart School and a junior at Mercy Catholic High School. Active in both school communities, he was among those attending the regional meeting in Red Bluff. He said one of the best ideas to come out of the meeting was a proposal to address declining school populations.

“The suggestion was for schools in the north state to hire a person to be in charge of student recruitment,” he said. “If we get the good news about Catholic education out there to people, they will come.”

The next step following the regional meetings is for elementary schools in the diocese to submit to the Catholic School Department a draft by mid-March with their assessment of the current state of their school, including enrollment, financing, staffing and facilities issues.

Also included in that draft will be schools’ goals and projections in shaping a master plan for the next three to five years.

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