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.
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12/23/2022 12:05:27 am
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