Catholic School: why do you send your child (or not)

[summer42]

Our family is not Catholic but we have attended a Methodist church for the last 16 years. My daughter is currently in a Catholic school and has been since kindergarten. She is now in the seventh grade and is being harassed by the principal. I am just curious as to what the policies are on teacher and principal misconduct as far as touching a student or putting chemicals on their face such as make-up remover pads. My daughter is allergic to just about everything and luckily she didn’t have a reaction to the pads but I did not give any authorization for that to be done nor was I contacted about this incident until she came home from school. The school handbook clearly states that if punishment is implemented, the parents will be contacted by phone and a notice will be sent home. I did receive a written notice later but no phone call. I see it as misconduct and harassment. She was accused of wearing make-up to school and she knows better than to violate the handbook rules like that. She is a good kid and an honor student. She doesn’t cause any trouble with anyone. Now she’s being punished for something she didn’t do so I am reconsidering enrollment for next year, which is a shame because she would be graduating from the eighth grade.

 

[His_helpmeet]

Unfortunately, there is not a Catholic school close enough to us (rural area) so we have to send DSD to the public school. We would like to homeschool her but her mom won’t agree.

I do teach her Catechism at home, and our school allows volunteer teachers to come in for 1 period a week to teach religious education.

 

[MessyMom]

In our former town, the school system was a mess and pretty much every school was failing (the one elementary and one high school that were NOT failing were populated by the “rich” people of the city.) We choose to send our kids to the parish school at great sacrifice to our financial situation. In the long run, it was worth it even though we struggled. The school was educationally sound and the parents cared about making the school better and kept a rich Catholic tradition.

Last summer we moved 1400 miles away from home. There is one parish school that is in realistic driving range for us. My youngest son attends pre-K there and I love his teachers. But I HATE the school. It’s had a lot of change over (4 principals in 3 years, the principal that started this year, left unexpectedly in March) and, while there are some great welcoming parents there, most of them are not. They were pretty upset that the kids would be having Mass twice a month vs. the once a month they used to get (my kids old school went once a week and the older kids did confession once a month, these kids don’t get that.) It’s also more expensive than our old school (not totally unexpected due to cost of living) but they also have mandatory “volunteer” hours and mandatory fundraising. We just wrote a check at the beginning of the year to cover the fundraising cause I hate fundraising soooooooooo much. If we don’t reach our required volunteer hours, we’ll have to pay $37 per hour that we’re short.

In contrast, my older children are at the public school. We have been welcomed greatly by the school community, there are a lot of community events (movie nights being a big one!) and all the teachers care. The school community is fairly stable (our principals been there since 2000) and everyone seems generally happy to be there on a daily basis, including the majority of the kids. The office staff knows my children even though they are “quiet” kids and aren’t in there ever. They know when I come which kid is mine and which class they’re in (impressive in a school of 600- the Catholic school is only at about 150 students and only one person in the office knows which kid is mine.) When you couple this with an outstanding Faith Formation and Youth Group at our parish (not the one attached to the school), it makes for a better overall environment for the kids. And a better one for our family.

 

[summer42]

I am glad to hear that I am not alone. I had to take my daughter out of one catholic school after her 3rd grade year because of the principal already. The catholic school she attends now has went through three principals in the last three years. I just don get how these principals think they can do whatever they want and change the rules as they go along. I have never heard of mandatory volunteer hours for any school around me and having to pay for the hours you don’t volunteer is way out of line! That is just another way to suck the money right out of your wallet! I will have a parent conference with my child’s principal next week about this issue. I think that putting a make-up remover pad on a child’s face without parental consent is the same as administering medication to a child without permission. It’s complete misconduct. I really don’t want to take her out of this school because she has her friends she doesn’t want to leave and she likes the teachers but if we continue to have issues with the principal, we will move our daughter to the public school. She has her faith foundation set and she is a good Christian girl so I have no problem with moving her if necessary.

 

[Rico_S]

The catholic school she attends now has went through three principals in the last three years.

Yeah, something isn’t right with that.

I have never heard of mandatory volunteer hours for any school around me and having to pay for the hours you don’t volunteer is way out of line!

Required volunteer hours are pretty standard across catholic elementary schools that I have seen. I think at ours they count for maintaining “parishoner” status so that we get the discounted tuition rate. I don’t think this is a case of some wild and crazy principal out of control with power, but rather a common practice with which you aren’t familiar.

I think that putting a make-up remover pad on a child’s face without parental consent is the same as administering medication to a child without permission.

I don’t think I can go with you on that one. I’m not sure exactly how the whole thing went down and you may have a ligitmate beef with how it was handled, I just don’t think the “same as medication” angle is all that legit here.

 

[Robert_Bay]

This thread has been dormant for a considerable period. With rare exceptions, reviving threads after a protracted period of inactivity is discouraged because:

• the issues that spurred them are often no longer “hot” or current topics, explaining why thread activity ceased originally.
• posters originally involved in the discussion are sometimes no longer active on the forum and, therefore, unavailable to reply to comments added to the thread.

Our experience suggests that, when a topic merits revival, it is best accomplished by initiating a new thread that draws on recent events and can be posted to contemporaneously. This eliminates the baggage of folks being frustrated by asking and not receiving responses to issues raised in early posts (because the new poster didn’t notice that the post he was responding to was made a long time ago).

Posters are very welcome to open a new thread on the subject or any other topic, as well as to actively participate in the myriad active threads in the fora.
**
Thank you to all those who have participated in this discussion. This thread is now closed. **