Catholic School should be accessible to everyone

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minniemom3

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Catholic School should be accessable to everyone. All of my children attended Catholic school, and I am now on the School Council of our local school. I am disappointed with some recent events in our school, and am trying to decide how to respond. We have a family with 12 total children & 6 of them are enrolled. In the past, the family has had no problem with tution payments. However, 3 years ago their business suffered a huge theft that has left them strapped for money. Our previous principal & Father worked out a financial arrangement (that the finance guy hates). Yesterday, the new principal & finance guy ambushed her regarding tutuion (they had fallen a little behind because our area got 35 inches of rain). When she told them what she could pay them now, she was told it wasn’t acceptable. She was handed a paper stating that her tutuion would now be twice what it currently is. The principal also told her that perhaps she should consider public school. She is freaking out, and my heart hurts for her. She has set a meeting with Father for Thursday morning, & asked me to go with her.

This just seems like a very unCatholic way to treat a faithful family. Thoughts?
 
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It’s interesting I was thinking about this the other day, I thought Elizabeth Ann Seton created the first Catholic school for free. Now I pay about 9k a year in NY for my daughter. I don’t want to get into the “why is it better than your public school” because I’ve done slot of research and have experience with opting out my son on some courses thankfully I was able to opt out from with his experience in that public school. Plus it ranks poorly as well. But this Catholic school has things I don’t appreciate either like having the girls sports uniform be super DUPER miniskirts. It’s a long t-shirt. If you’re late on tuition a few days they send you a reminder email in ALL CAPS telling you so.
 
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In England Catholic schools get no money from the taxpayer but Anglican and muslim schools do.

Half the money comes from the Catholic church and half from donors.

Many non Catholics are in our Catholic schools.
 
minniemom3 said:
Catholic School should be accessable to everyone.
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I think part of the problem is that gone are the days when religious orders ran the majority of schools. The catholic school where my son attends used to be run by a religious order. The tuition about 50 years ago, used to be 5 dollars/yr. Nowadays Catholic schools are run by teachers who have to make a living. The teachers at my sons school are devout Catholics. However they too have children to raise, they are married with mortgages, car payments, student loan payments…etc. They need a salary, which comes from student tuition. I do feel bad for your friends family. They are in my prayers.
 
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Nelka said:
In England Catholic schools get no money from the taxpayer but Anglican and muslim schools do.

Half the money comes from the Catholic church and half from donors.

Many non Catholics are in our Catholic schools.
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Sorry, Nelka, that’s not quite correct. Go to catholiceducation.org.uk.This is what they say.

'In England, the school buildings and land are owned by the Catholic Church , and it provides them to the State at no charge. The day-to-day running costs of Catholic schools are funded by the State in the same way as other schools, through the Local Authority or Dept. of Education agreements.
The Catholic Church covers 10% of the capital costs for the maintenance of the premises. Through this arrangement the Catholic Church saves the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds a year.
 
Ask what the requirements are for scholarships. A local parish had Bingo three times a week which kept tuition costs down and increased the number of scholarships. My nextdoor neighbor(as did I) went to public school for his whole life and was ordained a Catholic Priest. This also depends on the quality of public schools. Some a great, some set low standards and fail to meet them. Also, professional versus religious order types = more staff to pay a professional salary to as another person said here.
 
Our tution really isn’t out of hand because we receive a great deal from the church. However, just about anything reasonable multiplied by 6 is tough. She offered to take the kids out last year, but Father wouldn’t hear of it. My guess is that yesterday’s meeting was done without his knowledge.
 
It is more unaffordable than it should be, that’s for sure. The local catholic high school here is about 11-12k per year with no subsidy or financial aid. If you are a parishioner you can apply for financial aid through our diocesan fund, which is fortunate because the parish “subsidy” is about $200 😅. We are in the process now of applying for 3 kids. We applied last year just for our oldest daughter and got about 50% off tuition, but in the end she decided not to transfer as it was going to be her last year of school. But we are liking less and less about our local public school, at least for middle and high school, so we are going to see if we can make it work for our remaining school aged kids.
 
Catholic schools are fully funded by taxes in three Canadian provinces. But people there pay higher taxes. Most Americans would not go for that model.
 
It was definitely not cool to ambush her nor to change her “deal” with no prior notification or discussion. That is not only uncharitable and “unCatholic” it isn’t even the human decency that any person should give another, period.

As for funding- definitely talk to the pastor about the current funding model, the reality of the financials, models in places like Wichita KS where parishes tithe and school is free for tithing Catholic families. What is the diocesan philosophy— is Catholic education for all Catholic families or is it for the elite?

(I can tell you that our parish had nuns teaching until it couldn’t afford to pay the order what they wanted/needed and they pulled out and the school closed— that was in 1968! Imagine how much harder and more expensive it is now with lay educators salaries and benefits, etc.)

Talk about this person specifically and how she was treated but also how “we” can keep her current children in school and plan for the rest.
 
Edit: Your comment “This also depends on the quality of public schools.” was what prompted me to respond.

For us…we have two choices. Send our three children to the K-6 public school in our neighborhood, which has been given a grade of “F” for the last 12 years, was almost taken over by the state government, received part of $30 million dollars to build onto the school a place where children could go to get their “government freebies” in the form of “health care” (aka: prophylactics); be taught that picking your gender identity is fun, socialism is “god of all”, and other things I do not want entering my children’s heads, and has no after school day care arrangements that work for us… or send our children to the Catholic school where my wife works, pay a lot of money, but be taught by wonderful teachers who have my children’s best interests at heart, and will teach them about the faith like I do.
 
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Than, see the padre; as public schools are getting curiouser and curiouser…
 
Homeschooling is always an option… or moving to another parish. If Father and the finance guy both hate this lady and her great large Catholic family, who needs the stress?

A really loving option would be to put up a page raising money for tuition, and announcing that the parish school is strapped for cash and getting rid of students. Heh heh heh, I’m sure Father would love that…
 
I suppose I would (somewhat) understand if we were operating at capacity & her kids were taking up spots that could be filled by others, but that’s no where near happening. We are seeing Father on Thursday morning, and I’m praying he puts a stop to this! I will ask Elizabeth Ann Seton for her intercessions.
 
Things with Father went perfect! He was confused that the finance guy would say the terms that Father came up with last year were no longer acceptable, and a bit horrified that this guy was trying to squeeze more money out of this family. He also suggested they do a spaghetti supper at the church to raise some money for tution. He wants it clear that the church wants these children to remain at our school. I feel that we are blessed to have such a priest leading us.
 
Glad to hear the meeting went well! I would have been surprised if the priest did not respond like this. I know at my parish’s school, the priests are adamant that no one will get turned away because of money. They will find a way to make it work. And they do.

I’m sorry your friend had to go through this.
 
This is why we need School Vouchers and School Choice. But, Democrats oppose it.
 
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