Catholic school application process

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LisaB said:
This is ridiculous. Truly, I don’t get upset about most issues posted here but this one makes me angry for you, OP. First of all, how are you supposed to know in advance that you should have been putting envelopes in the collection for however long? You wouldn’t know prior to the school application process. Second, how sad that they have to resort to this method and consider nothing else as a confirmation of your parish involvement. Are there other Catholic schools that would accept your child?

My son went to a school across town, had nothing to do with where we lived or attended church. It was not the best school in the area but still better than public. And he was accepted to high school no problem.
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Put yourself in the school’s shoes.
 
Our parish never frowns on a donation, they are grateful small, large, weekly or annually.
 
Been there, done that. For years was on parish finance committee, school board, and then became the schools business manager for several years.
All these gimmicks to see who is an active member are doomed to failure no matter how they do it. Required to put an envelope in the basket every Sunday? I haven’t done that for 40 years.

At the end of the day, if someone is a catechist at the parish, and contributes money, that should be sufficient for any parish school unless it is being run by robotic luddites.
 
OK, that’s fair enough. It’s just super hard to screen families, especially from only one interview. I close friends with someone on the board of a Catholic school. A wealthy and influential family sits on the board, pulls the strings, and lets their kids and grandkids off the hook for pretty much anything. They’re technically Catholics in good standing, until you consider that nastiness, cutthroatedness, and vindictive behavior might-just-might go against Church teaching. :roll_eyes: A schools applicants are like, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, a box of chocolates.

For this reason, school administrators need to be street smart and set firm and fair boundaries. My personal preference is simply to send my kids to school, volunteer at the bake sales and library, and stay ignorant as to how the sausage is made.
 
tafan2 said:
Been there, done that. For years was on parish finance committee, school board, and then became the schools business manager for several years.
All these gimmicks to see who is an active member are doomed to failure no matter how they do it. Required to put an envelope in the basket every Sunday? I haven’t done that for 40 years.

At the end of the day, if someone is a catechist at the parish, and contributes money, that should be sufficient for any parish school unless it is being run by robotic luddites.
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So what do you suggest a school to do when they have twice as many applicants as spots? You have to order them somehow. It is logical to see who is active in the parish and who isn’t. Who is going to mass and who isn’t.

I wish there was a better way but there isn’t. You could say first come first serve but is that really fair?
 
Rau said:
but education is a large government expense and if I’m not calling on the government system, perhaps a credit on my tax would be reasonable
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But that’s not how it works. The point is for services that cost a large amount of money to be funded by everyone so the bite is not excessive on anyone (at least in theory).
Rau said:
In my country, Catholic schools educate about 20% of kids. The reduction in costs to the public purse is immense
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And taken into account when the budget for the school system is developed. The school system budget is based on the cost of educating the children who attend that school system, not how many kids live in the area served by it.
 
It’s very simple, in this order:
  1. siblings
  2. first come first serve for parishioners
  3. first come, first serve, non-parishioners
We settled on parishioners as defined by either register and contributor (time or money) or they live in the parish boundaries.

Anything else will be unfair sooner or later.
 
I like this approach. While I understand that the school needs an objective criteria…in this case, is someone who puts an envelope in every Sunday, but is not involved at the parish in any other way, more “deserving” that someone like myself who serving as a catechist? (Not saying I am more “deserving” - just putting it out there).
Regardless, I will be speaking to Father at the earliest convenience.
 
whatistrue said:
The point is for services that cost a large amount of money to be funded by everyone so the bite is not excessive on anyone (at least in theory).
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Why should the government not contribute to the education of kids in non-government schools just as it does for kids in government schools. We’re there no non-government schools - that is what it would be doing and at greater total cost than currently. The non-government schools are a “gift” to the government.
 
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Rau said:
The non-government schools are a “gift” to the government.
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How so? The amount of tax revenue allocated for schools is not fixed, it varies based ultimately on the number of children attending public schools. So “x” children in private school and not public school is “x” fewer children for the government to educate so the budget is lower by the amount that “x” children would cost. No gift, but everyone’s taxes are (or at least should be) lower.
 
It is very simple. The government did not pay to build the schools nor pay the operating costs of the schools that educate a chunk of the kids. This is a windfall to the government budget.
 
I saved the American government a TON of money today; didn’t visit a single national park. Not one! How much do they owe me?
 
Not much compared to ~ $100,000 of school fees? A large amount, evidence-based and accurately quantifiable… Where does common sense come into play?
 
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You paid $100,000 of your tax monies to school fees? That seems very hard to believe.
 
cloistered said:
You paid $100,000 of your tax monies to school fees? That seems very hard to believe.
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A rough figure for the cost to educate one child outside the government system. It’s pretty similar to the costs the government “escapes” for each child outside the government system.
 
Between elementary and high school, I paid at least 100k, if not more.
 
On average in the US, the amount spent per child K-12 would exceed $100K.
 
Rau said:
It is very simple. The government did not pay to build the schools nor pay the operating costs of the schools that educate a chunk of the kids. This is a windfall to the government budget.
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It is both simple and complex. But you have so far only looked at the expenditure side and ignored the revenue side. Revenue to the government is not static, a properly functioning government adjusts tax rates and such to more accurately reflect expected expenditures, so if the expenditures drop (fewer kids educated) then revenues should also drop. And in any case, at least in countries that I am personally familiar with which have functional government funded public education, the percentage of students who opt out and attend private (including parochial and “First Baptist Church of Snordville School”) schools are a very minor blip compared to the overall education budget. Hardly a windfall on a percentage basis regardless of the absolute dollar amount.
 
I can promise you, my children educated at Catholic high school are far better educated than if they had gone to the local public high school. Will that make them better citizens if they have a higher-quality education? I think so.
 
I can promise you that the education between our local public high school and the Catholic school was very…very similar (TBH, the public HS gave the kids even more opportunities and class selection). I guess it depends where you’re at.
 
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