In March, as Covid-19 cases rose dramatically from Seattle to New York City, Catholic school principals and teachers worked tirelessly to transition to remote teaching and learning and diocesan schools’ offices worked to support schools in making this dramatic shift. One very real fear of superintendents, pastors, and principals was that parents would question the value of a Catholic education delivered online and choose to stop paying tuition or worse yet, not re-register for the 20-21 school year. Exacerbated by a skyrocketing unemployment rate, many families were faced with a choice: pay the rent and put food on the table or pay their child’s tuition.
In the midst of this challenge and uncertainty, the St. Vincent de Paul community in Salem, Oregon began a transformation to a dual language immersion Catholic school. A severely under-enrolled school, SVDP had less than 70 students as it concluded the 19-20 school year. In April, weeks into Covid-19 and with dangerously unsustainable enrollment as well as significant financial challenges, the Pastor and Superintendent chose to risk a resurrection rather than settle for a death. The process of transformation called for tough decisions, which were made by the Pastor and supported by the Superintendent and Archbishop. Leadership chose to trim grade levels and re-start the school with PS/PK through Grade 5 only and put middle school students in a pipeline to the 6-12 Catholic MS-HS. They also chose to let go all staff with the opportunity for all staff to interview for the new school model. The process of transformation called for commitment. A representative stakeholder group met weekly for four months, including: pastor, parishioners and parents, funders and marketers, diocesan leaders and led by a consultant. This group held dual language immersion information sessions, communicated tirelessly with parents and parishioners, developed a new brand and new website including online registration, reimagined school finances including a bold shift to cost-based tuition and need-based tuition assistance, thoroughly purged, cleaned, painted, and refurnished classrooms, and added fresh exterior paint to complete the visual makeover. The process of transformation called for investment. Funders rightfully requested a plan of action for the school; they listened to a presentation on the dual language model, asked excellent questions about the likelihood of success and financial sustainability. Credible sources within the community came forward to back the transition of the school, showing their commitment as valued members of the weekly stakeholder meetings. In addition, a SWOT analysis, thorough feasibility study including an assessment of local public and private school competitors, and a 6-year budget projection were completed. As a result, individuals, family and community foundations generously contributed funds for capital improvements, materials, and financial assistance. This process of transformation called for an investment in human capital. The Archbishop, in consultation with the Superintendent approved the bylaws and membership of the inaugural Board of Limited Jurisdiction. This is an exciting shift in governance with a membership capable of investment and influence to direct the school’s transition and future. The Superintendent, in consultation with the Pastor, hired a new principal; a bi-lingual leader who has hired a new teaching and support staff and in partnership with an excellent admin assistant are welcoming current and new families to the reimagined SVDP. St. Vincent de Paul, their new mascot is the Phoenix, is truly a rebirth. They have re-opened their school with just over 80 students and are charging more than double the tuition collected in previous years. And, in partnership with the NativityMiguel Coalition, did not lose sight of their mission to serve families in need. Professionally, it was a privilege to facilitate this work over four months and personally witness this transformation. It was a blessing to be part of the work that has yielded a new future for one Catholic school. Thank you to Fr. Manuel Becerra, Pastor and Dr. Jeannie Ray-Timoney, Superintendent for your leadership, and to the entire weekly working group for your commitment to writing this new chapter for St. Vincent de Paul Dual Language Immersion School. St. Vincent de Paul is located in Salem, Oregon. To learn more about SVDP, visit them online at: https://svdpschoolsalem.org/
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Susan Abelein, PhD
For decades, Catholic schools and dioceses have relied on tuition, fees, fundraising, subsidy, and, or philanthropy to sustain operations. Given the current circumstances, school budgets are effected, at a minimum, by the loss of tuition income and fundraising revenue; though, some are taking advantage of the $2 trillion stimulus package’s Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan. It is imperative that leaders and stakeholders in Catholic education act now by evaluating their existing approach to school finances and considering alternative approaches and their possible application in their schools in order to ensure operational vitality for the decades to come. Rethinking Budgeting Rather than developing an annual budget that uses simple percentage-based increases, consider a zero-based budgeting approach. Generally, the budgeting process for an average school involves a modest percent increase in tuition on the revenue side balanced with a modest percent increase for salaries and benefits on the expense side of the budget. Throw in some fees with nominal increases and fundraising to cover educational materials, technology, co- and extra-curricular activities, insurance and utilities, and you have created the budget for next year. Zero-based budgeting entails - you guessed it - starting from zero. You build the budget based on whole-school design, including your mission, vision, values, goals and the programs and resources needed to fulfill it; you build the budget based on the job you are hired to do. “Customers don’t buy products or services; they hire them to do a job.”[1] What’s the job your school is hired to do? Conceptually, zero-based budgeting is not complicated but it does take a lot of worthwhile effort. Of the many benefits, it ensures spending is aligned with your school’s mission and vision; it ensures you have the right programs in place with regard to academic excellence and any other marquee programs that define your school; and, it ensures a structure for annual and long-term (3-5 years) evaluation. Overall, this approach requires your finance team - “team” includes principal, pastor, finance council at the elementary level; includes: principal, president, business office, board at secondary level - to evaluate your expenses (if using your preliminary budget) or define your expenses (if starting the budget process from scratch) and determine their monetary worth against your mission and vision. In addition to the process and additional guidance found in this document, Zero-based budgeting,[2] ensure your budget accounts for an investment in exceptional human capital (employees with energy and expertise) and quality resources in order to deliver on your defined mission, vision, values, and goals. A final note on budgeting: whether you continue with the percentage-based increase approach or you move to a zero-based budgeting approach, ensure you include an annual investment in building an endowment. Work with individuals and foundations to, at a minimum, match your school’s annual contribution to the endowment. In this way, you are ensuring their financial support and partnership in the belief and long-term sustainability of your school and the job it is doing. Rethinking Tuition-setting Rather than standard tuition rate-setting methods that use simple percentage-based increases or round numbers as increases (e.g. $100/year), consider a Cost-based - Needs-based approach. Dr. Kevin Baxter offers a concise description, “In this model, the school charges the actual cost to educate a student and then negotiates with families who are not able to pay the true cost to educate.”[3] It is important to highlight that charging the actual cost to educate does include financial assistance; an outlined and transparent process for applying and awarding aid should accompany a move to a cost-based – need-based tuition model. Adoption of this approach takes courage and excellent communication skills as the, likely, “sticker shock” reaction could lead to anxiety among parents and significant loss of enrollment. However, it could also educate the community on the value of receiving a Catholic education, as well as, the quality of staff and programming found at your school. Another rate-setting option includes “freezing” tuition for a year. Freezing tuition means that the tuition rates you have in place for the current year are the same tuition rates you use for next year. As for those schools who annually negotiate tuition with families, and under normal circumstances, the school would work with the family to pay more tuition next year thereby increasing the amount to be collected. However, given Covid-19 and unemployment, principals should hold off on negotiating tuition for next year until the summer when, hopefully, more people are back to work and there is a more realistic picture of families’ finances. The pro’s and con’s of this “freezing” tuition approach are seemingly obvious. The #1 pro - parents will be thrilled that there is no increase and viewed as a compassionate response given the present circumstances. The #1 con - in order to balance the budget, you will also need to freeze salaries or have to come up with additional fundraising to fund the gap, which would essentially negate the pro for parents. One more rate-setting option is the “milestone” tuition increase. Milestone tuition increases occur every 3-4 years; for example, the tuition is locked in for early childhood education (PS, PK, TK), or for grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8), or for entering freshmen through their senior year. As such, parents know the expected financial commitment up front and for a chunk of time; this milestone approach to tuition increases requires long-term financial planning and would ideally coincide with a zero-based budgeting approach. What are parents paying for? What is the job that parents are hiring your school to do? What matters now? As you consider or reimagine what your school’s mission, vision, values and goals are, ensure you have the right financial model – with the right approach to budgeting and setting tuition - to ensure you can deliver. [1] Christensen, C. M., Hall, T., Dillon, K., & Duncan, D. S. (2016). Competing against luck: the story of innovation and customer choice. New York: Harper Business. [2] Richland One. Zero-Based Budgeting. PDF. (n.d.). Columbia, SC. Available at: https://www.richlandone.org/cms/lib/SC02209149/Centricity/Domain/104/zero%20based%20budgeting%20overview.pdf [3] Baxter, K. (2012). Financing for Success. In A practitioner's guide to Catholic school leadership: expert advice on practical topics from those in the field (pp. 53–66). Arlington, VA: NCEA. Susan Abelein, PhD
From 1960 to 1969, total K-12 public and private school enrollment grew from 42.6 million students to 51.6 million students[1]. Catholic school enrollment was at its highest in the 1960’s with over 5.2 million students representing a range of 10-12% of the enrolled population. What if, instead of the current 3.3%, we maintained a Catholic school enrollment that, once again, represented 10% of the total K-12 public and private school population? Instead of 1.7 million, 5 million students would be receiving a Catholic education. What would it take to get there? This challenge is not meant to discount the great work of educators who have increased student enrollment nor the accomplishment of nearly 250 new Catholic schools opening across the county over the last decade. Still, the impact of Covid-19 on the enrollment and number of Catholic schools across our country may be unprecedented. Schools and dioceses are activating creativity and taking resourcefulness to a new level during this challenging time. This energy and enthusiasm, imagination and innovation can be an impetus for improving existing programs, re-thinking, and re-imagining schools and dioceses and growing overall enrollment. Part 2 of this 3-Part series of posts ended with a challenge. Put your ideas on the table. Part 3 highlights a handful of examples that may complement or jumpstart idea generation. The National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS) offers a framework for our assessment and brainstorming in the areas of Mission and Catholic Identity, Governance and Leadership, Academic Excellence, and Operational Vitality[2]. Mission and Catholic Identity. Recalling Part 2, with regard to mission, schools and dioceses should consider what they were in the past, what they are now, who they serve now, and who they want to be[3] and as a result of this thoughtful consideration, become the institution that the community[4] needs most. Community surveys, needs assessments, listening sessions, and feasibility studies are important components to this step. What is your mission? The Going, Going, Gone[5] report shook me; the report is a study of teens and young adults who were raised Catholic, but left the Catholic faith. This report on the disaffiliated concretized, with both quantitative and qualitative data, the problem of a rapidly declining population of young Catholics in the Church. One of the most alarming findings in the report is that 74% of the respondents stated that they no longer identified themselves as Catholic at an age sometime in between 10 and 20 years old, with a median age of 13. What can a re-imagined school or diocese do to stop and reverse this trend? Governance and Leadership. This coronavirus pandemic can be the excuse or the opportunity we need to evaluate and consider the type of governance and leadership that will allow opportunities to grow our schools. There are a number of governance and leadership models involving a number of roles: superintendents, presidents, pastors, headmasters, principals, advisory boards, boards of limited jurisdiction, private and public juridic persons[6], and more. This re-organization must account for clear decision-making authority, a critical component of leadership. None of these titles is more common than pastor when it comes to the decision-making authority over Catholic elementary schools and some Catholic high schools. From personal experience running leadership formation programs in two of the largest dioceses in the country, I have worked with pastors who are passionate about Catholic education and value the partnership and collaboration with their school principal. I have also worked with pastors who are, at best, overwhelmed by the responsibility of supervision and financial management, and some who are, at worst, burdened such that they would rather not have a school. If not now, when will we take a hard look at governance of our schools? Diocesan-sponsored, parish-based, religious order-based and independent are common Catholic school models across the U.S., but other practical and resourceful governance models do exist. The Archdiocese of New York (ADNY) Regional Model (https://catholicschoolsny.org/regions/), Partnership Schools within the ADNY (https://www.partnershipnyc.org/), and Diocese of Brooklyn Academies with 2-tiered boards (https://catholicschoolsbq.org/faq/) offer new ways of thinking about how schools are organized, governed and led. What is the right model of governance necessary to fulfill the mission and vision? Is your school and diocese willing to consider alternative forms of governance? Are they agile, courageous and equipped to develop and implement a new organizational structure for the sake of sustaining and opening more Catholic schools? Graduate and administrative credential programs are common and innovative leadership development programs do exist. Operating with generous funding from the Smet Foundation, Onward Leaders (https://www.onwardleaders.org/) is a 1-year intensive learning experience with paid residency that partners a resident principal with a current principal. Graduates of the Onward Leaders program are required to serve as principal for a minimum of three years in a low-income Archdiocese of Los Angeles elementary school. Who are the leaders that will guide our schools? Academic Excellence. What future are we preparing our students for? Forward-thinking planners are looking to preparing our students for college and, or career. Is it okay to challenge the college prep status quo that has been a hallmark of Catholic education; in effect, does every Catholic high school graduate have to go to college to be successful? To be a good Catholic? To contribute to their family, their Church, their community? Mercy Career & Technical High School (https://www.mercycte.org/) in Philadelphia and the ADLA STEM Network in Los Angeles (https://www.stemschoolsla.org/) earn well-deserved praise for innovating both what and how they teach. What are the knowledge, skills, and attributes of a Catholic school graduate? Two recommendations for transforming the box include Ted Dintersmith’s What School Could Be in which he writes, “Our children should study what’s important to learn, not what’s easy for you to test” and Tim Elmore’s Marching of the Map in which he writes, “Many recognize that simply continuing what we’ve done in the past will not get us to our goal. The future will not merely be an extension of the past.” What is the pedagogy and what are the programs that will define excellence? One such transformational approach is the Catholic Micro School Model that is in development by NCEA through the work of the Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Kevin Baxter ([email protected]). This approach addresses the critical issue of low enrollment in Catholic schools across the U.S. and is designed for schools with an enrollment of approximately 100 students. The Model has four key elements: technology integration, teacher training, principal training and an assessment tool for school culture. The goal is to have robust, successful low enrolled Catholic schools that are financially sustainable. Operational Vitality. Here is where the rubber meets the road. How do we ensure we have the money to deliver our mission and vision, as well as, ensure that the human resources, marketing, institutional advancement, technology, facilities, and equipment are in place for long-term sustainability of our schools and dioceses? In terms of finances, there are number of considerations: financial planning (consider putting together a team of finance professionals and developing a 3-5 year high-level financial plan), budgets (consider zero-based budgeting approach), tuition (consider setting a cost-to-educate and then allocating cost-based need-based tuition assistance), fundraising and development (consider evaluating current fundraisers; consider an annual endowment contribution). At a minimum, school and diocesan leaders could revisit Timothy W. Dwyer’s “Best Practice Recommendations” reported in his 2005 study of Catholic school finance[7]; these recommendations as well as his “Closing Challenge” should be considered as part of an analysis, discussion, and planning of finances. Schools and dioceses can look to their own state as well as Federal programs for support, including Title IV, Part B (https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg55.html). This Title program provides funding for new or established community learning centers; while these cannot be religious in nature, these can be housed on parish or school grounds and provide tutorial and enrichment programs and special programs (art, music, counseling, etc.) for qualifying students and literacy and other educational development programs for students’ family members. For schools and dioceses in states where private school choice programs exist there are additional funding opportunities to consider (https://www.edchoice.org/engage/). In terms of marketing, there are three key considerations: defining and selling your value add, retention of our current students, and recruiting new students. Your value add is your edge in the educational marketplace; do you know what makes you special? Is your value add what your current students and families want? Is your value add worth the money? I recall Lorraine Ozar, lead author of the NSBECS, saying, “Catholic schools should be irresistible.” As such, we have to have a product - faith and excellence - worth selling and we have to have a marketing budget in order to sell it. Word-of-mouth marketing is still #1, but it cannot be just one person (the principal, or the pastor, or the president, or the superintendent) sharing the Good News of your school and diocese. Teams of well-prepared marketers (including leadership, plus parents, teachers, students, alumni, and other key parish and community stakeholders) must clearly and broadly communicate the value of the school. An appealing, up-to-date, user-friendly website and consistent posting on social media are also mandatory assets in an overall marketing strategy. Overall, in terms of retention and recruitment, Partners in Mission (https://www.partnersinmission.com/) holds an annual enrollment management conference; you will walk away with plenty of great retention and recruitment ideas to try in your school and diocese. Where does your school and diocese need to change and grow? Which of these areas needs to be tackled first? What are your ideas? Now is the time to put all the ideas on the table. It is a risk to highlight and share only some of the incredible schools, dioceses, and organizations and perhaps offend those not included. For those that I have inadvertently excluded, I strongly encourage those schools, dioceses, and organizations with creative approaches and innovative programs, to share a summary and a link to it in the comments section of this post. So what? What matters? Propagation of the faith matters. Affording students’ academic excellence such that they have limitless, not limited opportunities matters. Catholic schools develop and graduate young people with a foundation in the faith, with integrity, with a passion for justice and service, a commitment to giving back and paying it forward. Catholic schools graduate kids who are prepared for Heaven, and college, and career. Not only do we need to reverse the hemorrhaging of enrollment, we need to grow our schools by re-imagining what Catholic education is. Can we broaden the vision of what Catholic education is and enlarge the community of who is responsible for it? Dr. Susan Abelein has served as an associate superintendent in the Archdiocese of New York and Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is a national presenter, consultant and coach on topics including: leadership, systems, and organizational design, and a former Catholic school teacher and principal at both the elementary and secondary levels. She is currently involved in a number of educational projects as well as teaching online for Loyola Marymount University. She can be reached via email: [email protected] and via Twitter: DrAbelein. [1] US Census Bureau. (2019, November 13). CPS Historical Time Series Tables on School Enrollment. Retrieved March 26, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/school-enrollment/cps-historical-time-series.html [2] Ozar, L. A. (2012). National standards and benchmarks for effective Catholic elementary and secondary schools. Chicago, IL: Loyola University Chicago. [3] Gervasio, D. (2017). Running a smooth financial operation in the Catholic Grade School or High School. Arlington, VA: National Catholic Educational Association. [4] “Community” can be narrowly or broadly defined; it may be the community within the parish boundaries, town or city, or in reference to a particular culture or socio-economic status. The bottom line is, you need to know who you serve. Who is your community? [5] McCarty, R. J., & Vitek, J. M. (2017). Going, going, gone: the dynamics of disaffiliation in young Catholics. Winona, MN: Saint Mary’s Press. [6] DiPietro , M. (n.d.). The apostolate: is a new public juridic person next? The Legal Bulletin, (75), 3–13. Retrieved from http://www.ci-schools.org/secure/LB75_PublicJuridicPe_10BD8C.pdf [7] Dwyer, T.W. (2005). Stable but fragile: assessing the quality and scope of diocesan policies, procedures and expectations for Catholic school financial management. Washington, DC: National Catholic Educational Association. Susan Abelein, PhD
With over 300 views on LinkedIn and more than 20 shares on LinkedIn and Twitter, Catholic Schools Planning for the Aftermath of Covid-19, Part 1 seems to resonate with educators, fundraisers, and community and business leaders. From Part 1: To use Covid-19 as an excuse to permanently close a Catholic school during or after this shutdown, would be a disgrace to the history and mission for which our Catholic schools exemplify. Furthermore, it would be irreproachable evidence of ineffective leadership, poor planning and indecision as well as a lack of creativity and innovation. What will the lasting effects of Covid-19 be on our stable, stable but fragile, and fragile Catholic schools? Three critical variables of operational vitality include tuition, salaries and benefits, and enrollment; the interplay of these three factors and how and what principals, pastors, presidents, boards, superintendents and bishops plan and do now is what I am most interested in. In response to Part 1, Allison Hurtt, principal of St. Raphael in Los Angeles, writes, “So many of us on the ground (principals, teachers) are being incredibly creative and resourceful and I appreciate hearing the importance of not letting such creativity and resourcefulness begin and end during the COVID crisis -- but rather, how do we use this as an opportunity to flourish? Rebrand? Rebuild? (emphasis added).” Our schools not only need to survive this massive disruption, we should use this time as an opportunity to rethink and reimagine such that we flourish in the aftermath. Mrs. Hurtt’s comment is the perfect segue into Part 2 which picks up where Part 1 left off and considers both the how and what of planning and doing. The “How” captures, at a high level, the step-by-step process of planning the work and getting the work done. The “What” speaks to idea generation. The time is now; let’s get started. The “How” of planning and doing. Planning is a process and like any solid process, there are defined activities and assigned people responsible for each step. Doing is implementing, assessing, learning, and then making a decision to adopt, adapt, or abandon the plan. Step 1 of the planning process is to define your mission and vision. With regard to mission, schools and dioceses should consider what they were in the past, what they are now, who they serve now, and who they want to be[1] and as a result of this thoughtful consideration, become the institution that the community[2] needs most. Community surveys, needs assessments, listening sessions, and feasibility studies are important components to this step. What is your mission? Once your mission is clear, what is your vision? What will your school and the diocese look like 3, 5, 10 years from now? Your vision should be visionary; that is, your vision should represent forward-thinking, innovative design, considerate of the characteristics of the students you want to graduate. What is your vision? Step 2 of the planning process is to clearly delineate your core values. What are the top five truly important beliefs of your school and the diocese? These can be really hard to define, but they are evidenced through the actions of the stakeholders. For example, as a community, you determine that faith, compassion, positivity, boldness, and growth are your values; as such, these should permeate the organization. Step 3 of the planning process is to develop goals; goals need to be set in order to ensure that the programs (the “What”) are intentionally designed and implemented such that their accomplishment, while exercising the core values, will lead to fulfillment of the mission and vision. There are a number of free, easy-to-use SMART goal-setting guides and templates available online. What are 3-5 goals that will move your school from good to great and from fragile to stable or from stable to enduring? In these steps, I’ve included both individual schools and dioceses’ moving through the planning process. Whether you are a system of schools or a school system, multiple stakeholders must be involved. Developing mission, vision, values, and goals should not be done in the principal’s office or the superintendent’s office, respectively, but should involve a representative community of stakeholders: religious and lay employees and volunteers, current students, alumni, and parents, parish and, or religious order influencers, college and university partners, philanthropy, finance and marketing professionals, and businesses. The “What” of planning and doing. The time is now for reimagining what Catholic schools do; leaders may consider “tweaking, thinking outside, or transforming” the box. Tweaking the box involves making a small change to improve an existing program; this should be a program, which by all metrics, is working, but with a small tweak will be even better. Thinking outside the box entails creatively rethinking; this is a program that is not working or not meeting the needs of students you currently serve and as such the program needs to be scrapped and something new designed, implemented, and assessed for impact as part of a cycle of continuous improvement. Transforming the box requires complete reimagining; this is an extraordinary opportunity to rethink everything about what Catholic education is and the knowledge, skills, and attributes of a Catholic school graduate. This continuum of growth moves from least to most difficult to implement, from safe to risky, from maintenance of the status quo to greatness or failure. And, every standard and benchmark of what makes a Catholic school excellent is up for consideration: Mission and Catholic Identity, Governance and Leadership, Academic Excellence, and Operational Vitality.[3] Any number of possible innovations may result from this Covid-19 shock to the system and evolve the way we meet and exceed these expectations. Now is the time for every idea to be put on the table. Author’s Note: In Part 3, the final part of this series, I’ll share a handful of ideas for consideration in the areas of Mission and Catholic Identity, Governance and Leadership, Academic Excellence, and Operational Vitality. Dr. Susan Abelein has served as an associate superintendent in the Archdiocese of New York and Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is a national presenter, consultant and coach on topics including: leadership, systems, and organizational design, and a former Catholic school teacher and principal at both the elementary and secondary levels. She is currently involved in a number of educational projects as well as teaching online for Loyola Marymount University. She can be reached via email: [email protected] and via Twitter: DrAbelein. [1] Gervasio, D. (2017). Running a smooth financial operation in the Catholic Grade School or High School. Arlington, VA: National Catholic Educational Association. [2] “Community” can be narrowly or broadly defined; it may be the community within the parish boundaries, town or city, or in reference to a particular culture or socio-economic status. The bottom line is, you need to know who you serve. Who is your community? [3] Ozar, L. A. (2012). National standards and benchmarks for effective Catholic elementary and secondary schools. Chicago, IL: Loyola University Chicago. Catholic Schools Planning for the Aftermath of Covid-19, Part 1
Susan Abelein, PhD Across our country, Catholic school teachers, principals, and superintendents and their teams are thoughtfully and urgently preparing for an unprecedented transition to at-home, including online, learning. The action of school staffs and dioceses is extraordinary and speaks to the resolve of loving and concerned, mission-driven educators. These weeks, possibly months, of shutdown in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic will have a similar, if not greater impact as other historical events that have jolted, even rocked, the existence of Catholic schools in this country. Why might this be different? Schools, parishes, and dioceses have had a history of downplaying, at best, and often disregarding the realities of Catholic school finances for decades; many schools across the country have been in "hospice mode" for years with diocesan coffers, parish subsidies, and philanthropy funding any budgetary gaps. To use Covid-19 as an excuse to permanently close a Catholic school during or after this shutdown, would be a disgrace to the history and mission for which our Catholic schools exemplify. Furthermore, it would be irreproachable evidence of ineffective leadership, poor planning and indecision as well as a lack of creativity and innovation. What will the lasting effects of Covid-19 be on our stable, stable but fragile, and fragile[1] Catholic schools? Three critical variables of operational vitality include tuition, salaries and benefits, and enrollment; the interplay of these three factors and how and what principals, pastors, presidents, boards, superintendents and bishops plan and do now is what I am most interested in. Tuition and Salaries and Benefits are definitively linked in our Catholic schools. Generally, up to 85% of the operating budget are salaries and benefits while total income from tuition never covers the true cost-to-educate each student. While some stable schools may have a well-established endowment to draw upon or cash in reserves, the majority of Catholic schools develop a tight annual balanced budget based on tuition and may even rely on a subsidy from their parish or diocese. With schools temporarily shutting down, Catholic school leaders are facing immediate questions: Should (and Will) parents pay their tuition? Do we have enough money to pay teachers and staff? Can we afford to pay those employees who are hourly or part-time? Additionally, the temporary pause of weekend masses only exacerbates the concern about the financial sustainability of our schools who may rely on a parish subsidy and also calls into concern the financial viability of some of our fiscally fragile churches. Enrollment drives our ability to remain open; this is the bottom line – no kids (or not enough kids), means no school. Teachers are the front lines of retention; their presence in the classroom, and now online, is a critical factor for students returning to our Catholic schools. Teachers know students; they know students’ learning styles, how to motivate, and where each student is at in terms of their learning progression. In the short-term, retention efforts may include weekly calls or virtual meetings by teachers to groups of students and their parents via Zoom video-conferencing or Google Hangouts. Principals, caring for their teachers, students, and school parents, are also a vital influence in retaining staff and school families. Similarly, principals can hold weekly calls and virtual faculty meetings with teachers and staff with the objective of checking in and accompanying one another during this difficult time. How are you? Let’s pray together. How are you progressing with this week’s work? How can I help? These authentic and compassionate discussions are necessary, not only for connecting, but for maintaining the witness that Catholic schools epitomize. Catholic school enrollment was at its highest in the 1960’s with over 5.2 million students attending nearly 13,000 schools; since then, the enrollment and the number of schools has precipitously declined with current enrollment at just over 1.7 million students attending 6,289 Catholic schools[2]. The impact of Covid-19 on the enrollment and number of Catholic schools across our country may be unprecedented. What can we do? We can plan. Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This “break” from school is unparalleled; this is not a two-week Christmas break, one-week Easter break, or summer vacation. This Covid-19 break is incomparable and, is already or will eventually, take its toll on students, families, and educators’ mental and emotional health as well as on teaching and learning. We need to plan for and be prepared for not only the financial impact, but the psychological and educational impacts, as well. What can we do? We can plan together. Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” At this time, solidarity must outweigh subsidiarity. While individual schools and parishes and individual dioceses are caring for their own, we have an incredible opportunity to exercise Mother Teresa’s statement and work together on solutions – from conventional to innovative – such that our nation’s Catholic schools not only survive but flourish. I have hope that with a commitment to planning together, we will envision Catholic education differently. One of a number of possible innovations may result from this shock to the system. Perhaps, new financial models for Catholic education will emerge. Perhaps, dioceses and schools across the country will consider re-purposing their current schools or reopening closed schools as hubs for online Catholic education. Perhaps, schools will consider the kind of school they were in the past, the kind of school they are now, who they serve now, and who they want to be[3] and as a result of this thoughtful consideration, will become that Catholic school that the community needs most. I get the need to scramble in this very moment, to take care of the immediate concerns, to triage. Still, let’s be sure to build in the time and the resources to plan and work together so that when this crisis is over, all our Catholic schools remain open, as beacons of hope and for the promise of faith and excellence for current and future generations. [1] Dwyer, T.W. (2005). Stable but fragile: assessing the quality and scope of diocesan policies, procedures and expectations for Catholic school financial management. Washington, DC: National Catholic Educational Association. [2] Advanced Solutions International, Inc. (n.d.) Catholic School Data. Retrieved March 17, 2020 from https://www.ncea.org/ncea/proclaim/catholic_school_data/catholic_school_data.aspx [3] Gervasio, D. (2017). Running a smooth financial operation in the Catholic Grade School or High School. Arlington, VA: National Catholic Educational Association. |
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