Catholic school application process

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So I applied for our local parish Catholic school for my four year old. He will be turning 5 in October, so will be starting kindergarten in September. The school called us back for an interview which was this morning…my wife, son, and I all attended. Over all the interview went well, but it was very disappointing to learn that we are pretty “low” in the queue for available spots. Apparently first dibs goes to siblings (which is fair and I have no issues with).
The next category is for regular, “participating” members of the parish. I was alarmed to learn that, according to the school, I don’t fit into this category.
I attend Mass every Sunday (though not always at the parish - I am very fond of our cathedral and go there quite often as well). I am a special needs catechist at the parish and am preparing a young man for confirmation every Monday afternoon. I donate a significant amount of money to the parish. Yet the official criteria for determining eligibility is based strictly on the number of weekly envelopes dropped in the basket. Amount is not looked at, only the number of envelopes. I tend to put money aside and then write large cheques which I drop in the basket periodically, rather than putting small amounts in every week…turns out this will really, really hurt my son’s chance of getting into Catholic school. The principial said I could write a $10 000 cheque one Sunday and that wouldn’t help me one iota…number of envelopes is the only criteria.
She did ask if the pastor knows me…which he definitely does (and is well aware of my weekly catechism ministry)…so she will talk to him to confirm and that may help us out… still frustrating.
I suppose this is more of a rant than anything else.
 
Talk to the pastor.

Many parochial Catholic schools have rules like this to avoid giving the parish discount or participating parish member status to “parish hoppers.” Aka Catholics who only attend the parish some times for mass, but otherwise are not part of the parish community.

Regardless - with parochial (aka parish) Catholic schools, the pastor has final say regarding who is a participating member of the parish.

OR you can think of it this way. They do that to prevent the “parish hopper’s” kid from getting into parish school before your kid.

Either way, it sounds like the pastor should approve you. And if he doesn’t, I would write a letter to the diocese.

God Bless
 
Every Catholic school finds that “participating member of the parish” a difficult thing to qualify.

I pray for the day that we HAVE limited spaces, then we will have to come up with a method.

Were I in your shoes, I would speak to the pastor and set up a weekly electronic donation of a small amount, then, continue my donations of more when I have the $$.
 
twf said:
Amount is not looked at, only the number of envelopes.
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Question: does she literally mean only envelops, or does your parish also have a weekly electronic giving option tied to your envelop number?
 
twf said:
Yet the official criteria for determining eligibility is based strictly on the number of weekly envelopes dropped in the basket. Amount is not looked at, only the number of envelopes.
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They should not care about the amount, but why is “number of envelopes” the critical factor? Some people don’t use the envelopes.
 
I know of people who have been at parishes like this, they will drop in empty envelopes just so their attendance is noted.
 
Rau said:
They should not care about the amount, but why is “number of envelopes” the critical factor? Some people don’t use the envelopes
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It shows attendance.

One envelope per week shows that she was there.
 
maryjk said:
It shows attendance.

One envelope per week shows that she was there.
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Yes, I understand that logic now…but I didn’t realize that not doing so would potentially bar my son from attending Catholic school…despite being a regular Mass goer, catechist, and regular donor.
 
phil19034 said:
Question: does she literally mean only envelops, or does your parish also have a weekly electronic giving option tied to your envelop number?
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I don’t think they do…but I will double check now. I give online regularly to the Archdiocese and to other charities…but I always write cheques for the parish. Turns out my practice of putting money aside and writing large cheques periodically is majorly frowned upon in this scenario.
 
Thanks, I will talk to Father… will email the parish office to see when I can get in.
 
I’m glad I read through all the posts below, as I couldn’t figure out why they would care about an envelope a week… but I see now it’s to count attendance and prove you are active. Makes sense.

I’m not sure where you live, but it surprised me you even had to do an interview to get into the school at this age (age 4). We’ve lived all over the country and although we did get wait listed numerous times, we never had to do an interview. Just being a registered member of the local parish sufficed.

It really does seem as though your situation with being active in another parish would be enough to have them get a letter from the other parish vouching for you. 🙂
 
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CoffeeCatholic said:
I’m not sure where you live, but it surprised me you even had to do an interview to get into the school at this age (age 4)
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I was thinking the same thing too.

I’ve only seen interviews for expensive, private Catholic schools (not run by a diocese or parish) and Catholic High Schools.

HOWEVER, if the school has a lot of demand, interviews seems like a good way to keep heretical families (who would undermine Catholic teaching) out of the school. If that’s why they are doing interviews - good for them.
 
I was surprised as well when we were asked to come in for the interview. They tested him a little on colors and numbers and such, but nothing too onerous. It seems there’s a lot of demand and always a waiting list… a shame that Catholic education is not a guarantee. I’m not too thrilled with the possibility of him being stuck in the public schools.
 
We have the opposite problem. So many of our Catholic school are closing and combining. Yet, they still are a risk for closing. Do you live in the U.S.?
 
I see. Doesn’t Canada have a voucher system to allow parents to send their children on parochial school?
 
Rau said:
Yes, but the converse - that is, no envelope means not present - is not a reliable guide. The envelope is an unreliable measure.
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If the parish is large, they can’t rely on the priest’s memory.

But they want make sure that the family is active in the parish.

Many parishes use this method.
 
The issue here isn’t money. The issue is being admitted to the school in the first place.
 
That really stinks! We have a similar concern at the moment…we just turned in our app in for next year (3 kids already in catholic schools this year) and we have the same system here and didn’t realize that. Our pastor signed our stewardship form but we only have 32 envelopes for the year as we gave electronically A few times and would also just give cash when we went to a Sunday evening mass at a neighboring parish. We are also very involved in our parish and I’m a catechist and also am a VBS leader. Even though our stewardship letter is signed we are worried that our financial aid will be lower this year since we have a lot fewer envelopes than last year 😦
 
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