How Catholic School Destroyed Our Faith

[Rau]

…We suddenly found that requesting financial aid meant you were made to feel like trash. You were told to change your lifestyle (I assure you we have a humble home, no fancy luxuries nor wanted for them)… You were dismissed by the financial department often. Calls ignored. After agonizing months our monthly tuition for all four was adjusted from the (twice our mortgage payment) to a few hundred with a balloon payment at the end of the year (our entire tax refund). Suddenly, during the second year with our second oldest now attending this High school our bank account was drained. Not only did this mistake take everything but it caused bills to bounce, car payment to default, no food or gas to be bought… The financial aid department was incredibly rude when we called to ask them to correct the issue, no appologies, no concern, in fact we were made to feel a nusiance… but we were promised that next month it would not happen again.

The following month our account was drained again. We are a middle class family. I called in tears and was met with the same “Oh, it’s you again.” attitude. In fact I was laughed at. Honest to the Lord above laughed at. Long story short, under the direction of the younger children’s school we wrote a letter. They had had it with the financial department as well. Found that many parents were having the same problems and they themselves were unable to communicate. Not one thing in this letter was untrue. We cried as we wrote this letter. At the time we were close to losing our home. Our car was repossesed and our marriage was cracking under the financial stress.

Long story short. The priest of this school threw all of our children out… Screamed at our daughter… Shunned my husband as he attempted to speak to him… but after finding truth in our story invited them back"…

The behaviour you describe is certainly disgraceful. The priest, and the finance persons, ought to be hauled before you and the bishop to explain themselves.

Are you obliged to make payment only via direct bank debit? That is itself an outrage given your financial circumstances and the resulting potential for difficulties. Perhaps you should also reserve some disdain for US Governments which take your taxes, but will contribute none of it to the school that educates your children.

 

[mommy_k]

I am sorry you were treated like this. The finance management company and school made a big mistake, and it seems someone did not communicate this error to the principal and pastor.

About the school-we live in a rural suburban area. When our older children approached high school age-there is a closer catholic high school that we looked at, and it did not seem like a good fit for us. So we looked around and found another one-this one was far- about 25 miles away, but the enviornment was more inline with what our expectations were from a school, similar to the elementary school. We chose this school.

I think every school is different, so if the option for you to drive a bit futher is there, you can carpool, I would look into this we also get a transportation check from our school district because there is no bus to this school… Please do not use the bad experience you have had to juddge all catholic high schools. Like with everything else, there are exceptional, caring schools, and some that are not so much.

I personally would not be a good homeschool mom-but this seems like a good option if you can do this.

Best of luck to you and your family. I hope everything works out.

 

[DJgang]

The behaviour you describe is certainly disgraceful. The priest, and the finance persons, ought to be hauled before you and the bishop to explain themselves.

Are you obliged to make payment only via direct bank debit? That is itself an outrage given your financial circumstances and the resulting potential for difficulties. Perhaps you should also reserve some disdain for US Governments which take your taxes, but will contribute none of it to the school that educates your children.

Very high pressure to use the bank draft company. Very. The schools then know for sure they will get some money. From the options that I had at our school, what she described wasn’t an option for us and would have taken communication from the school to get it changed. However, more than likely she did sign something that said “x” amount or they wouldn’t have done it. The arrangement must have never been made… Otherwise I say to the OP, if the financial company took out wrong amounts without written consent, I would legally be pursuing them since it caused hardship.

It’s all sad. Yet my children went to the parish school where one year half of the student didn’t pay tuition at all. I remember them calling me about 50.00 that I still owed after they increased book fees at the last minute and for my family the total was 1700.00 extra that year, again last minute yet called me about 50.00. Ugh.

 

[Blessedwithfive]

I dont have a lot of time right now but wanted to say I can relate to th OPs story. As a 6th grader i was called to the Principal’s office at the end of the day along with my 4th grade sister. We were told to pack all of our things and to tell our Mother that we were not to return on Monday. So trying not to cry we packed ALL of our things, books, notebooks and rode the bus home packed like it was the last day of school. Embarrassed to say anything to friends and teachers and I remember clearly lying to a friend who asked why I was bringing so much stuff home. All this is to say that I KNOW this happens. All these years later I am still sad about that experience. How did it work out? My wonderful Mother took us to school on Monday and sent us to our classrooms she then had a conversation with the principal and then the Pastor of the Church. It never happened again. I think to this day they might still be afraid of her.

I little fear never hurt anyone. Your mom was a wise lady. The church needs women like her, helps keep others humble.

 

[cararolen]

So sorry for your experience. I will say that there’s good and bad in everything - including Catholic schools.
Our parish school has been a blessing to our family so far. I hate that your family didn’t get to have that.
I hope that in time you can find a priest and parish that you feel comfortable with.
Sending prayers to your family for the grace to forgive those that wronged you and the strength to continue in the faith.

 

[manualman]

The problem with the OP’s post is a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation and who the bad guy really is. The OP never states it, but the entire post contains an underlying attitude that her kids are OWED a private catholic education and it is the DUTY of the church (defined as some nebulous entity out there) to provide it for them without burdening them too much financially.

Yes, there is no excuse for rudeness and insensitivity of the staff and possibly the priest at the school. That IS shameful. But the REAL bad guy here is the government. All these years they have been taking substantial property taxes from you in the name of providing full educational opportunities for all (supposedly), except that if you want your kids educated in a catholic environment, you are required to forfeit those benefits and pay for it AGAIN. The brutal truth is that this blatantly unjust government policy makes it mandatory for catholic parents to honestly assess their ability to afford private schooling within their means BEFORE committing to it. For most of us these days, catholic high schools are NOT affordable. High school quite simply costs a ton of money to provide. That money isn’t going to pay for (in most cases anyway) a new Lexus for the principal priest every year. It’s going into paying for the greatly enlarged overhead and staff needed for contemporary high school. My local public school district is among the worst in the state of Illinois and somehow they manage to spend about $17,000 per year per high school student. Private schools aren’t going to be able to manage much less than that while still doing a better job.

Ultimately, you can’t be guilted into making a decision on a school you can’t afford. You have to live within your means and making the hard decisions to do so is YOUR job, not that of catholic schools. These days there is no magic pool of money by which they can waive tuition for anybody who wants to go there, but can’t afford it. They have bills to pay just like you do and both of you have to make the hard decisions necessary to stay solvent. You refused to make those decisions and you’re angry at the school for it. (And partly justified since they were rude about their financial responsibility.) But really, you should be angry at the government who put you BOTH in this tough spot by forcibly taking your money and refusing to allow you to access it to help educate your children in the manner YOU see fit instead of the manner that THEY see fit.

In the final scheme of things, you are angry and resent that they were just as unable as you to extricate you from your bad financial decision. Time to own it and admit that you made mistakes as large as they did. Theirs were omissions of decent treatment, civility and charity (defined as life giving love, not financial assistance). Possibly they made the uncharitable mistake of attempting to use ‘catholic guilt’ into manipulating you to enroll even though you can’t afford it (I’m not there and don’t know for sure). Your mistakes were mistakes in financial responsibility and the expectation that somebody else ought to magically fix that for you.

The financial compromise the government forced on MY parents was that they could afford catholic schools for us kids k-8 grades and then we went to public high school. That’s probably the model we’ll end up with as well. An incredible amount of effective formation is possible by 8th grade and the cost is MUCH less brutal than private high schooling. I’m still angry at the government for forcing us into this compromise and by the time my last kid finishes 8th grade I’ll be out over $74,000 in private school tuition and I will have saved the local public school district $264,000 in what THEY would have spent giving my kids a lower quality education without so much as a thank you note from the district that receives nearly $7,000 from me in real estate taxes every year (yes that’s JUST the school district portion of my taxes). I think it’s clear who the REAL villain is here in regards to the costs of catholic schooling.

 

[Pax2u]

In our town the Catholic high school is basically for the children of doctors, lawyers, and other highly paid professionals. Tuition costs, books, and uniforms are out of reach for the average working person.

They say no one is turned away for lack of payment…but if that is true, I don’t understand why the makeup of the student body is what it is. It reminded me of what’s going on with healthcare now…what’s considered your “portion” is more than what can be spared out of a family budget…that’s the way it was when we checked into it for our children. And no, we don’t live lavishly…very simply, as a matter of fact.

A solid Catholic education is a wonderful thing to give young people, and helps keep the faith alive into their adult years. I wish it was true that every Catholic parent who wanted to could send their child to a Catholic school.

 

[manualman]

They say no one is turned away for lack of payment…but if that is true, I don’t understand why the makeup of the student body is what it is.

You do sometimes hear that in marketing and it is deceptive and should be heavily modified. To a certain extent, it’s true in that they will bend over backwards to try to reduce your tuition to an extent that you can afford shelter, food and medicine. But the criteria for such aid is quite severe and expects you to have pared back your lifestyle to approximately 1970 standards before they will cut your tuition. No laptops, no cable TV, no iPhone, no new cars, Goodwill clothes, etc. So if you walk in with 2 kids, 2 cars, a 1,800SF home and all the other accoutrements of middle class America, don’t expect them to subsidize your without first asking you to make a lot of painful sacrifices first.

Objectively, that’s not unfair. American standard of living in 1970 is still better than probably 75% of the global population today. But it’s pretty brutal by our spoiled modern American standards. The reason they have this expectation is that THEY don’t have extra money laying around either, so the only people the schools are willing to risk financial ruin for are those who demonstrate heroic sacrifice in their own lifestyle first. Pretty fair, actually. And these people ARE out there. My kids’ school has a family with five kids that live on about what I made my first year out of college (and I barely saved a nickel then). They get nearly free tuition and they need it to just in time patch the holes in their roof. And thank God for them, because they’re awesome people that really enhance the school community.

But the schools should be more honest about it in marketing materials.