Kansas City Star – February 3, 2010 – By Joe Robertson
Two years ago, the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph began trying to figure out how to keep Catholic schools open and thriving.
In a long-range planning process led by Bishop Robert Finn, hundreds of people have defined Catholic identity and academic excellence and worked on marketing for the schools.
But the most vexing issue — how to meet education’s rising costs — remains a struggle for consensus between tithing and tuition.
The traditional stewardship model of supporting schools through the generosity of the collection plate is turning to more reliance on tuition, about $3,000 a year at the elementary level.
The church is trying to agree on a balance between collecting more tuition while still inspiring parish support to buoy families who need financial assistance.
“It has been a hard sell,” Finn said.
The move toward tuition challenges a long tradition, said diocese spokeswoman Rebecca Summers, whose children went to Visitation School in Kansas City.
“I know that we put three kids through Visitation on the welfare of that parish,” she said. “And now I feel that the dollar we give helps someone else’s child. That model graced my life.”
The planning study that began in spring 2008 with Wisconsin-based Meitler Consultants laid out several challenges facing the diocesan schools and their 12,225 students.
The cost of operating Catholic schools has been rising by roughly 6 percent a year, the study found, but few parishes have a history of matching that rising level of need with their offerings.
Elementary school enrollment has declined by 15.8 percent since 2002-2003, with problems evident in both recruitment and retention of families.
High school enrollment increased by 4.5 percent on the strength of private Catholic high schools such as Rockhurst and St. Teresa’s. But diocesan high schools such as Archbishop O’Hara and St. Mary’s saw their enrollment fall by 13.7 percent.
The diocese’s strengths, touted this week during Catholic Schools Week, also are evident.
The good news includes the more than 70,000 community service hours in the past school year, ACT college entrance exam scores well above state and national averages, and a nearly perfect graduation rate with 97 percent of the graduates going on to college.
The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas is waging a similar struggle to preserve its schools, Superintendent Kathleen O’Hara said.
Its enrollment, strengthened by growth in Johnson County, has held steady at about 15,600, she said. But finances are a concern.
The archdiocese is increasing efforts to secure grant and foundation funding to fortify the revenue from stewardship and tuition, she said.
“We have to find the best way of underwriting the costs,” she said. “It’s difficult in these times to make sure our schools are accessible and affordable to all families.”
“We are not interested in becoming elite institutions.”
About one-third of the elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas still rely predominantly on stewardship and don’t charge tuition from parishioners.
More than half of the elementary schools in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph still use the stewardship model.
High schools are all tuition-based.
Any further switch toward more use of tuition needs to carry a clear message, Finn said.
Parishes must continue to increase support for education, and tuition-paying families must feel that it is right for them to ask for any financial assistance they might need.
And the funding model has to rely on more than tradition to show it can sustain schools.
“We have to get people to a high level of support,” Finn said.
“And it can’t be just on the backs of the parents who send their kids to the schools.”
Please listen to the podcasts below, parts I and II in a series by O’Meara Ferguson president and founder Patrick O’Meara, entitled “Hope for our Catholic Schools”.
Hope for our Catholic Schools (Part I): An Overview of Economic Models
Hope For Our Catholic Schools (Part II): Operational Models
