Denver Newsroom, Jun 17, 2020 / 03:33 pm (CNA).- At least 100 Catholic elementary and high schools across the United States will not reopen for the fall semester, with many suffering from low enrollment and decreased donations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sister Dale McDonald, public policy director of the National Catholic Educational Association, told CNA that the biggest driver of school closures at present is uncertainty.
The U.S. is home to about 6,000 Catholic schools, down from some 11,000 in the 1970s— about 1,000 of those closures occurring since 2007.
Most pandemic-related closures are of elementary schools. Some high schools, several of which have been open for decades, also are closing this summer.
Part of that uncertainty is on the part of the schools, many of which do not have the resources to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state guidelines on sanitizing and social distancing in classrooms.
“It’s very difficult for the principals to figure out what their school opening will look like; when it’ll open, and what you have to do to meet all the guidelines,” MacDonald said.
“And the public schools are looking at the same thing, but they certainly have a lot more resources to be able to manage their reopening. But for us, financially, it’s a big deal.”
Parents, understandably, want to know what their child’s education is going to look like in the fall, MacDonald said, and many wonder whether they will be able to go back to work.
Many working-class families that send their children to Catholic schools have been impacted by illness and unemployment, and may simply not be able to pay tuition.
For most Catholic schools, MacDonald said, about 80% of their operating budget comes from tuition. In addition, many Catholic schools hold major fundraisers in the spring, which had to be canceled or postponed after the pandemic hit.
To make matters worse, many parochial elementary schools depend on contributions from parishioners. After months of no in-person Masses for most dioceses, many parishes, especially those without a robust system for online giving, are feeling the financial pinch.
Despite the large number of schools closing, in some cases donors have rallied to keep their school from going under.
Earlier this month, the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in New Jersey was saved from closure through the action of anonymous donors.
But Sister MacDonald warned that this model of saving a few schools at the last minute will likely not remain sustainable year-after-year.
“We are optimistic that things will pick up,” she said, noting that about 2,000 Catholic schools across the country have not experienced massive enrollment declines, but instead have waiting lists.
“People do want Catholic education, and our challenge at NCEA and in working with various dioceses is how to make these schools affordable and accessible for families, especially families of modest means.”
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles oversees the largest Catholic school system in the U.S., and wrote in a June 16 column that the nation’s Catholic schools play a vital role in helping minority and low-income families.
Nationwide, about 20% of students who attend Catholic schools in the U.S. are members of racial minorities, according to 2016 NCEA data.
In Los Angeles, that figure is significantly higher. Gomez says about 80% of Catholic school students in LA come from minority families.
For elementary school students, the average yearly cost of attendance is about $5,936, while for high school students it is $15,249, NCEA says.
Los Angeles’ Catholic Education Foundation has granted more than $200 million in scholarships to 181,000 low-income students over the past 25 years, Gomez said.
In addition, he said, the LA Catholic school system has provided nearly half a million free meals to low-income students since the start of the pandemic.
The archbishop decried the fact that 37 states still have laws on the books, known as “Blaine Amendments,” which prohibit government funding to “sectarian” schools— a 19th-century euphemism for Catholic schools, according to opponents of the laws.
A constitutional amendment to ban government funding for Catholic schools, proposed in the late 19th century by Maine lawmaker James Blaine, failed at the federal level, but many states inserted similar language in their constitutions.
Parents paying to send their children to Catholic schools end up also paying for public schools with their tax dollars, Gomez said, without any of that government aid going to their children’s education.
The Supreme Court is expected to soon issue a ruling on a consequential Blaine Amendment case, and though some parishes have received emergency payroll loans through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Gomez says Congress and the White House “cannot afford to wait” to provide aid to Catholic schools.
“If Catholic schools are allowed to fail in large numbers, it would cost public schools about $20 billion to absorb their students, a cost already-burdened public schools should not be made to bear,” Gomez asserted.
Catholic school students are, almost across the board, more academically successful than their public school peers. According to 2016 figures, 99% of Catholic school students graduate from high school on time, and 86% of Catholic school graduates attend college.
About 17% of students at Catholic schools are not Catholic, making their attendance an opportunity for evangelization both for them and for their parents.
MacDonald says she hears from parents who are not Catholic who nevertheless want for their children the kind of environment that a Catholic school provides.
“While we are teaching the academics, we are creating an environment that we hope lives out Gospel values, where kids are expected to act and live with Gospel values in terms of service to others, care and concern, basic Christian charity, and cultivating a prayer life,” she said.
“We hope and pray that they have learned how to be good Christians while in our schools. And that’s good for everybody.”
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Do Jewish organizations have some animosity towards Catholicism? Beyond the abortion divide?
This is extreme animus which seems disproportionate to the leaked memo about federal v state lawmaking?!
Apparently their [Ruth Sent Us] philosophy is that every pregnancy they suffer is due to rape. They want sexual pleasure without responsibility.
Without grace that brings us to respond to God’s goodness, purity, spousal faithfulness, the tenderness and selfless giving of motherhood and love of children, the inevitable result is disassociation of the divinely ordained gift of sensual pleasure from the purpose of the conjugal act.
They dress in long red hooded gowns with white headdress as eerie as their coven like behavior. Sensuality has become consonant with Justice A Kennedy’s golden calf of liberty. After all, if we insist on something as a human right, there must be some personal, interior reward. Fundamental. Venereal. Consequently and virtually our culture has become venereal minded, foisting a new morality of liberty to exercise and experiment sexually [from pansexuality {with humans} soon likely to omnisexuality {with any living creature}] on college campuses, in children’s classrooms.
Irrational. Of course, but only if you’re not morally deranged. Sin, repudiation of natural law is always irrational because reason, that is, right reason is rational and consistent with the ordained order of things.
What then for the Catholic? Despite ourselves, our widespread nominal practice, the priesthood abuse scandal, heretical Catholics in Congress, apparent abandonment from the highest hierarchy – we are in the forefront! Miracle of miracles it’s Catholics who bear the banner of Christ and Blessed Mary as did the Crusaders, as did Joan of Arc, as did Columbus when he landed on the Americas’ soil.
We’re in for a fight [I’m stupid and arrogant so I choose to fight] offered the chance to prove our mettle to Christ, that we truly love him, that we stand for truth and justice, for family and children, that we will stand and fight to the end and to the glory of his Holy Name.
So then, I choose to fight with the spiritual arms Christ has given me, to address the truths of the faith clearly and with confidence, to give example as Christ did when confronted, to pray and offer sacrifice, to desist from violence and harm to others, to demonstrate the true meaning of our humanness.
Thats a disappointing statement, Father. Do you imagine prayer will stop demonstrators who believe they can disrupt our worship services with no repercussions at all? And if they indeed set consecrated hosts on fire in front of you, do you imagine prayer will put the fire out? Would you really do NOTHING?? I personally am tired of the kid glove treatment given to the 2020 rioters,serial shoplifters who KNOW they will neither be arrested or prosecuted, and those who vandalize our churches while police say those acts will NOT be treated as hate crimes. Now we have threats not only to our secular judges but ( I saw the video) people threatening to set the Eucharist on fire. When evil people KNOW they will never pay ANY price for their deeds, they will not only continue the behaviors, but they will escalate them. I will never be anyone’s willing victim. I am a Catholic and I believe in prayer. I am also an American and will not stand by meekly if attacked, nor allow my civil right to worship, to be stolen by people who have the IQ of a potato.To telegraph the idea one will not fight back to defend what they believe is a grave mistake, and it actively invites further attacks.The suppression of religion touted by the left was one of the reasons this nation spent decades physically fighting Communism all around the world. Peace at any price is NOT peace. It is simply capitulation.
Additionally LJ I certainly agree we cannot roll over in the face of violence directed against the innocent. That I can assure you I’ve always held.
Thats good to hear, Father. When raising my sons I always told them I NEVER wanted to be told by a teacher or parent that they had ever attacked another child or struck the first blow in any situation. But I always told them, if someone hits YOU first, hit them back as hard as you can. Once when one of my children was about 5 years old I was chatting with an acquaintance at a local pool. Her son was big for his age and was aggressively physical with other children. As we chatted, this child several times, unprovoked,roughly pushed my son down into the water. The boy’s mother said nothing, but I was about to. Finally my son (also big but not confrontational by nature) , got up out of the water and punched the boy so hard that he loosened a tooth. Needless to say that boy never attacked my son again. Its a hard lesson to learn, but not every maladjusted or bullying personality can be coaxed into appropriate behavior by “niceness” or prayer. These types of people are frequently the ones who end up in jail as adults. Sometimes you are forced to defend yourself physically. Its surprising how often that sort of push-back resolves the issue.The bully always counts on making their opponent cower in the corner.They count on fear to prevent resistance. In the case of our freedom of religion, we dare not allow such a thing.
I’m pleased LJ. At first I misunderstood until I gave further thought that it wasn’t intended personally.
Do they really think that helps their cause to slaughter innocent human beings? Fools.
hmm…. 🙂 – here we thought it was the 4th Easter Sunday….silly us 🙂
This would not happen at a Mosque. Just sayin’
It was Catholics-In-Name-Only Biden and Pelosi who encouraged these disruptions. And yet they are not excommunicated for it. Do we have to wait before these pagans desecrate the Host itself that the Church authority do something about these wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Would it not be nice if just one prominent American prelate put Biden on notice that we expect him to expend all necessary resources to protect churches and the faithful from these demonic hooligans and vandals? Yet again, their silence convicts them. And from the Vatican, all we hear are more condemnations of the rigorists. With shepherds like these, they mind as well as put out a sign saying it’s open season on the flock. Just so long as the federal money keeps flowing to Catholic Charities, all is fine at the chanceries. One day, that will get pulled too.