Changing times force innovation at Catholic schools

(UNDATED) Decades ago, when it was time for Catholic schools to enroll students for the new year, principals could fill classrooms without breaking a sweat. All they needed was for the parish priest to print a note in the church bulletin. Times have changed. These days, Catholic families have fewer children, on average. And public […]

(RNS5-MAY29)  Everlyn Hay, principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School in Newark, N.J., discusses a writing assignment with 3rd grade student Rania Evans, 8. For use with RNS-CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS, transmitted May 29, 20009. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger.

(RNS5-MAY29) Everlyn Hay, principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School in Newark, N.J., discusses a writing assignment with 3rd grade student Rania Evans, 8. For use with RNS-CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS, transmitted May 29, 20009. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger.

(RNS5-MAY29)  Everlyn Hay, principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School in Newark, N.J., discusses a writing assignment with 3rd grade student Rania Evans, 8. For use with RNS-CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS, transmitted May 29, 20009. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger.

(RNS5-MAY29) Everlyn Hay, principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School in Newark, N.J., discusses a writing assignment with 3rd grade student Rania Evans, 8. For use with RNS-CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS, transmitted May 29, 20009. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger.

(RNS5-MAY29)  Everlyn Hay, principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School in Newark, N.J., discusses a writing assignment with 3rd grade student Rania Evans, 8. For use with RNS-CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS, transmitted May 29, 20009. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger.

(RNS5-MAY29) Everlyn Hay, principal of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School in Newark, N.J., discusses a writing assignment with 3rd grade student Rania Evans, 8. For use with RNS-CATHOLIC-SCHOOLS, transmitted May 29, 20009. Religion News Service photo by Jennifer Brown/The Star-Ledger.


(UNDATED) Decades ago, when it was time for Catholic schools to enroll students for the new year, principals could fill classrooms without breaking a sweat. All they needed was for the parish priest to print a note in the church bulletin.

Times have changed.

These days, Catholic families have fewer children, on average. And public schools — the main competition for Catholic schools — have improved. With enrollments down, Catholic school closures have been widespread. The recession is causing further pain, as more parents struggle to pay tuitions.

To keep their schools open, Catholic school principals have increasingly needed a mix of fund-raising acumen, marketing hustle, and technological and people skills.

Take Sister Donna Marie O’Brien, principal of Saint John the Apostle in Clark, N.J., for the past 29 years. Earlier this year, to drum up “word of mouth” about her school, she invited directors of 10 area preschools for a breakfast tour, showing off laptop computers and costly electronic “smart boards” in classrooms.

“One lady was so impressed,” said O’Brien, 69, “we had at least four students in kindergarten based on that preschool director’s recommendation.”

In many ways, New Jersey is a microcosm of a nationwide trend. Between 1970 and 2005, the number of Catholic schools statewide dropped by a third, from 609 to 396. The number of students fell to 129,000 from 275,000.


Nationwide, the number of Catholic school students fell to 2.4 million from 4.4 million during the same time period, and the number of schools dropped to 7,799 from 11,352.

Even so, the Catholic Church remains the largest non-governmental provider of education in the United States. The fate of its schools affects public school systems, which typically have to educate more students when Catholic schools close.

Competition is everywhere: a principal in a wealthy suburb like Franklin Lakes, N.J., competes for students with well-regarded public schools that are funded through property taxes. A principal in poverty-stricken areas of Newark, meanwhile, competes with increasingly popular charter schools. A principal in a wealthy section of Jersey City competes with top-notch secular private schools.

Principals market their schools wherever and whenever possible. They sponsor breakfasts. They write grant proposals. They design Web sites and ads. They oversee preschools. They coordinate fundraisers. They work to charm parents.

Thirteen years ago, when Mary Baier became principal of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Jersey City, “it was all about spirituality, managing the faculty, doing some staff development, and just being very at peace with what you do best,” she said.

“Now, what you did last year you can’t do anymore. You can’t be complacent. With the change of times and demands and different generations coming in, we had to think about how we could really develop our school.”


Baier, whose school has held its own against competition from private schools, described the modern role of Catholic school principal as that of master promoter and fundraiser.

“You need money, and the church doesn’t have it. How’re you going to get it? You wear the hat of director of development. And it’s not just mission. It means marketing. It’s bringing money in through grant-writing, bringing money in in any way possible — benefactors, endowments, scholarships, but also knowing how to use that money to facilitate your faculty to become more dynamic, to get resources that are going to enhance your curriculum. Today’s society, these kids at 3 have computers.”

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Each autumn, a Porsche secured at a reduced price from a local dealer sits seductively on the front lawn at the Academy of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Franklin Lakes, where principal JoAnn Mathews oversees a $100-a-chance raffle to raise money for the school.

She also manages a fundraiser known around town as “the Big Event,” a $100-a-ticket extravaganza and silent auction each spring.

“It brings in a significant portion of our budget,” said Mathews, principal since 2003. “Fundraising has always supplemented tuition as a source of revenue. But costs are so much higher now. There has to be some control on tuition, so fundraising picks up the slack.”

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The principals in less-wealthy environs rely more on their own acquired skills at grant-writing to finance everything from computers to bathroom and auditorium renovations.


Everlyn Hay, principal of Queen of Angels School in Newark, where 70 percent of the students are on free or reduced-cost lunch programs, said she typically writes four grant proposals a year, and would do more if time allowed.

“I’m the one who does all the grant-writing,” she said. “I just got our bathrooms redone. I starting writing, writing, writing. One foundation gave me $25,000. Another gave me $7,500.”

Keeping staffing costs down has helped Hay’s school stay open while other urban Catholic schools have closed or otherwise struggled. She herself earns less than $50,000 — even after working at the school nearly 30 years. Longtime teachers there typically make less than $30,000.

“Whatever we have to do to keep that budget within a certain range, we do,” she said. “We’ll have a fundraiser, and usually we’ll cater the food out. But if it’s a particularly hard year, I can tell my teachers, `Look, we’re having a hard year. Can you do a dish?’ And everyone pitches in.”

In the 1960s, the majority of Catholic school teachers hailed from religious orders, giving Catholic parents extra incentive to send their children there. These days, lay people make up the vast majority of teachers.

“The nuns are not here now,” said Mathews, herself a former Benedictine sister. “Parents are not coming for that anymore. Yes, they want a strong Catholic presence in their children’s lives, but they also want to be on the cutting edge of the academic world.”


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Where modern facilities are lacking, the principal’s personal touch goes a long way, says Hay, who said she knows the names of every child and their parents at Queen of Angels and runs occasional tutoring sessions for parents so they can help their children with homework.

Not only that, but with 30 years as either teacher or principal at Queen of Angels, Hay has taught the parents of about 65 of her 178 students. The parents’ familiarity with Hay, which led them to enroll children there, in itself is the difference between her school staying opening and closing, she said.

“We have a tradition,” Hay said. “If your child graduates from Queen of Angels and you were one of my students, you have to come up and get the diploma and give it to your child.”

Preschools, meanwhile, have become gold mines for Catholic schools, adding tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to stripped-down budgets and providing pools that feed K-8 programs, principals say. Parents pay Our Lady of Czestochowa $7,950 for full-day, five-day-a-week preschool for 3-year-olds. And the school’s program for 2-year-olds has a waiting list.

“When I got here (in 1980), we never had preschool,” O’Brien said. “We never even thought about preschool. Now it’s money, but it’s also the feeder to your kindergarten.”

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

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