ARTICLES

Investing in the Future: Catholic Schools

By Annette Z. Parsons
Special to The Catholic Virginian

“For generations, our Catholic schools have been communities of faith, where vocations to religious life were fostered and future Catholic leaders were shaped. Shifting demographics, aging buildings, and stagnant and uneven financial support from our parishes and dioceses have placed our schools beyond the reach of many of our families and those they would serve. The challenge to make our schools accessible and affordable begs to be addressed by the whole church.”

The Meitler Study, commissioned by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo to assess the future role of Catholic schools in the diocese, has not been put on the shelf.

The recommendations from the study have provided the foundation for a comprehensive Strategic Plan for Catholic Schools.

This plan, in its first year of implementation, has set goals in the following areas: Mission and Catholic Identity, Marketing and Enrollment, Academic Excellence, School Governance, School Funding, New/Expanded Schools, and the Office of Catholic Schools, itself.

Planning Priorities

One of the most critical elements of the first phase of the Strategic Plan deals with school funding. The ultimate goals are to provide a Catholic education to all students who seek one, to turn no student away because of affordability, and to continue to invest in school programs and instruction.

The elements of the plan are to:

• seek fiscal support from all parishes through a diocesan-wide increased offertory giving campaign.

• create a Diocesan Schools’ Foundation and endowment fund.

• invest in the schools themselves through program growth and enhancement, while augmenting non-tuition revenue and development efforts at the local level.

Increasing the Sunday offertory at parishes throughout the diocese will help Catholic schools continue to invest in their programs and instruction, while making them more affordable for middle and working class families.

Some of the monies realized through the giving campaign will remain at the parish to be used for parish religious education programs or other parish needs.

Monies realized through increased giving will be used for expanded tuition assistance to Catholic families, for helping schools provide just compensation for school employees and for providing educational program growth and enhancement, with a small portion going to debt repayment.

While schools in relatively affluent communities continue to thrive, others face declining numbers.

There are waiting lists in the Catholic schools of Charlottesville and the west end of Richmond and some areas of Virginia Beach, but regions like Danville, Richmond city, and Norfolk face challenges of affordability.

Casualties of affordability are reflected in school closings that have occurred in the last several years in Staunton, Richmond, and Tidewater.

In the years in which Baby Boomers and their parents attended Catholic schools, much of the cost was borne by the parish or diocese.

Today, the situation is different as schools of the diocese rely increasingly on tuition payments to keep the doors open and provide reasonable compensation for teachers and staff.

Without some change in how diocesan schools are funded, Catholic schools will be available only to affluent families.

The statistics are compelling. Tuition has risen about 31 percent in the last five years while parents’ income has increased only about an average of 14 percent in the same period.

There is a $1.24 million shortfall between parents’ demonstrated need for tuition assistance, and what schools and the diocese currently provide.

Many middle class families do not even bother to apply because they know resources are limited. Upper middle class families with multiple children are also being priced out of a Catholic School education, but because these families rarely apply for tuition assistance, their numbers are also not reflected in the statistics.

Exit interviews cite the increasing cost of Catholic education as the number one reason students leave diocesan schools.

Parish Support

Adding to the problem, parish support of regional Catholic schools has been flat for years.

In that time, parishes could opt voluntarily to increase their support of schools, though few parishes did. One needs only to imagine a household in which expenses climb for 10 years while income is frozen for those same 10 years, to get some sense of this diocese’s need to make up for lost time.

Parish support currently accounts for 5.4 percent of Catholic school revenue in the Richmond Region, 7 percent in the Southwest Region, and 4 percent in the Tidewater Region.

Nationally, parish subsidy is at 21.6 percent according to NCEA.

As parish support for Catholic schools has fallen, the resulting burden has been increasingly shouldered by parents and parishes with schools.

In the Richmond area, parents pay an average 83.1 percent of the cost of educating their children through tuition, textbooks, and other fees. In the Southwest (Roanoke, Lynchburg, Danville and Bristol), they pay about 78.7 percent, and in Tidewater, 79.3 percent.

In neighboring dioceses, parents pay 77 percent of the cost of educating their children through tuition, books and fees. Nationally, parents pay about 62.3 percent of the cost of educating their children according to NCEA statistics.

Parishes, like Catholic schools,are increasingly staffed by lay personnel who require higher salaries and benefits than were traditionally paid to religious who performed the same tasks in the past. Parishes, like schools, have increased the number of services, resources, and ministries to better serve their parishioners over the years.

Youth are Priority

Bishop DiLorenzo has made clear that the youth of the diocese are a priority. He cites the diocese’s document “We’ve Come This Far by Faith” which lists priorities based on recommendations from the faithful of the diocese.

The Bishop sees the increased giving plan as an investment in the future. He believes that the burden of supporting Catholic schools can no longer be placed exclusively on the individual parishes and on parents who pay tuition.

He also believes that some of the monies realized through the increased giving campaign should be used to enhance parish religious education programs and outreach.

Objections

This plan has not met with universal support on the part of some pastors whose focus, understandably, is on the needs of their parish. A committee of priests and Parish Pastoral Council members led by Father Donald Lemay of St. Edward Parish, Richmond, will study the plan and provide input to the Bishop and the Office of Catholic Schools.

Another objection to the plan comes from parishes which do not have a parish school. Why contribute to schools if our children cannot benefit from them, they ask.

Without the investment of the faithful, there will be fewer Catholic schools in the future. Investment will provide opportunity not only for sustenance, but for growth and expansion.

Future planning to sustain Catholic schools rests on the assumption that Catholic schools are essential to the future of the church. They serve as a vital means to teach and pass on the Catholic faith, values, and traditions to future generations.

A priority of the diocese must be to provide academically rigorous and doctrinally sound programs of education and faith formation to all young people who wish a Catholic education rooted in the Gospel message.

A recent study at the University of Notre Dame posed some haunting questions as it explored the future of Catholic schools.

“Will it be said of our generation that we presided over the demise of the most effective and important resource for evangelization in the history of the church in the United States?

“Will it be said of our generation that we lacked the resolve to preserve national treasures built upon the sacrifice of untold millions?”

It is my hope and the hope of Bishop DiLorenzo that the people of the Diocese of Richmond will respond to these questions with a spirit of commitment to our children, our schools, and our future Church.