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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Pray for this woman to receive the gift of contrition.
Meanwhile – to her goes the coveted (?) award for oxymoron of the week/month/year/decade.
Nancy Pelosi has supported abortion rights for 40-50 years. At that rate, she’s prime matter for a committal reward ceremony (and judgment, God rest her soul).
Nancy Pelosi is out-of-date, on Ireland at least. Time to get with-it, Nancy. Ireland was a Catholic country. Was, past tense.
Hi Gilberta. Abortion is legal in only 8 of its 32 states in Mexico. The majority of the people don’t want abortion legalized, but, the government wants the American dollars to continue flowing into Mexico.
After a list of five influential persons, herself first, down to her significant other, finally god. Priorities matter, but God’s creation of man in his image was not given to brought into this world and subject to a variety of personal priorities to kill it or nurture it.
God we know judges the soul. We judge ourselves to condemnation when we kill the innocent, or endorse the killing of the innocent. Archbishop Cordileone went to great length to touch a hardened heart. What we do to others manifests what we are. If there’s any indication of the Apostle’s warning not to receive the Eucharist unworthily, it’s manifest in the shivering coldness of the Speaker’s disdain for those who love life, her unwillingness to protect them from harm. She prefers to praise drag queens for their creative expression of freedom. This administration, this culture is rapidly becoming [already is?] purveyors of sodomy and death. The two are intimately related.
Nancy Pelosi is everything that is wrong in this world. She is no true Catholic, and she will be judged by the one that matters – God. It will be a rude awakening for her on that day.
It doesn’t matter how Catholic you are, you are still killing a living human being which is a very evil thing to do and a mortal sin if you happen to be a Catholic. But then killing an innocent human being is a crime against nature itself and not simply a Catholic religious belief.. Killing a child, even if she/he is in the womb, is still killing a living human being. It is simply someone who happens to be alive inside of a mother’s womb. Is the logic of it that it is ok to kill a human being as long as he or she is in a mother’s womb? If you cannot actually see this person’s face then, it is ok to kill them? They won’t be missed. There wasn’t a space they filled. It is just easy to get away with doing it to someone who can’t resist you or fight back. It’s actually a sneaky thing to do. The absence of the murder victim will go unnoticed. It isn’t like you will see them one day and not the next because you never actually do see them. The mother and dad could see them through an X-ray but not actually be able to touch the person, hear their cry. It is a pretty impersonal killing of someone you never see, hear, smell or touch. It makes it easy when there is very little or no contact giving any pleasant sensual affirmation.
JimnEm above – not sure about the point of your comment but thanks for the information on Mexico. My comment was on Ireland specifically. Like many, Nancy Pelosi seems to operate under the illusion that Ireland is still a Catholic country.
I am throughly convinced that all the violence in our world is due to the lack of respect with life. Abortion is a disrespect. Those Catholics that disrespect life need our prayers as over the past 100 years our government has politicized morality and culture. Led by human law (lawyers) as politicians, creates victims and grievances that claim to have lost their pursuit of happiness. This trauma in society has created new progressive man made law that usurps God’s law. These schisms happened in the Jewish culture, the Catholic culture, and now the Christian Protestant culture. All of these cultures have been secularized, canceled, disregarded, and marginalized as people gradually have no God, no morales, and no faith. It’s all come down to money and convenience in our throw away culture that includes babies. Only 20% of US youth want children and this is why we have to human traffic 4-5 million migrants to fill the void for cheap labor, sex, and future Americans by policies that our second Catholic President in US history supports along with abortion, socialist collectivism and dividing Christians based on the color of their skin and sexual orientation. Freedom of religion, went to women’s rights, to civil rights, to sexual rights, to ???. Further division leads to further subgroups that have grievances. It will never end as lawyers and politicians need victims to perpetuate their existence. Just as monks, preachers, and priests can’t create God’s law into their box….men with power whether a dictator or elected, can’t create God’s law either unless they believe the Bible, Gospel, Torah, and Koran are living changing documents like the US constitution. They all have tried for hundreds of years and all that has been accomplished are more schisms, divisions, and war.