Catholic schools turnover

[Anonymous]

A good question to ask your board or your pastor or powers that be would be:

As teachers gain more experience or get more education (Masters, Masters +30, etc.) by what rate is their salary increased?

When I taught at a Catholic School, we would get these letters that read, "the parish council has agreed to a generous cost of living increase" at a percentage that was smaller than inflation, than what my spouse in a non-profit got, and much smaller than my public school counterparts.

While there are discounts on tuition for Catholic School teachers, if they get a $30K degree for $15K, they don't necessarily get a salary bump due to having that degree.

[Anonymous]

Leadership turnover is an issue, including at Catholic schools. The SMS principal is leaving, according to his announcement, because he wants a change in career due to his wife and him having a baby. I know a principal in Washington, DC who has similarly decided to resign because he has a young child and family and can't deal with all the extra work, such as Saturday meetings, that the job requires. I think in many of these cases, this news is not necessarily a sign or decline or defect in the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SMS has been a mess for a while. Several years ago a teacher had to leave in the middle of the year due to a criminal investigation. I have heard stories of unqualified teachers. Aides are being put in the classroom with no experience.

A friend of mine once told me that Catholic school is 90% of public school work for75% of public school pay. Catholic doesn’t have some of the benefits of independent like small class sizes. Catholic school has 24-28 kids in a class some with learning issues.

I hope St. Mary’s can get a good principal who can attract high quality staff AND stand up to the pastor. ( That is a whole nother problem).

The pastor is in charge. Yes there is a principal but the pastor has authority over them. The diocese won’t get involved unless it’s extreme and even then they’ll come down on the side of the pastor 99% of the time.

+1 It is hard to explain to someone with no background in Catholic schools. Someone often with no educational experience is often calling shots. If you want to get somewhere in Catholic education, you have to kowtow to the pastor no matter the educational impact on kids.

For parochial schools perhaps, but not independant Catholic schools, since there is no parish and so no pastor.

Not necessarily true, St Anselms is not parochial but headmaster is definitely not in charge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SMS has been a mess for a while. Several years ago a teacher had to leave in the middle of the year due to a criminal investigation. I have heard stories of unqualified teachers. Aides are being put in the classroom with no experience.

A friend of mine once told me that Catholic school is 90% of public school work for75% of public school pay. Catholic doesn’t have some of the benefits of independent like small class sizes. Catholic school has 24-28 kids in a class some with learning issues.

I hope St. Mary’s can get a good principal who can attract high quality staff AND stand up to the pastor. ( That is a whole nother problem).

The pastor is in charge. Yes there is a principal but the pastor has authority over them. The diocese won’t get involved unless it’s extreme and even then they’ll come down on the side of the pastor 99% of the time.

+1 It is hard to explain to someone with no background in Catholic schools. Someone often with no educational experience is often calling shots. If you want to get somewhere in Catholic education, you have to kowtow to the pastor no matter the educational impact on kids.

For parochial schools perhaps, but not independant Catholic schools, since there is no parish and so no pastor.

Not necessarily true, St Anselms is not parochial but headmaster is definitely not in charge.

[Anonymous]

Reasons for turnover:
1. Low pay (especially for young single teachers)
2. Family responsibilities
3. Moving
4. Annoying parents/admin/pastor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reasons for turnover:
1. Low pay (especially for young single teachers)
2. Family responsibilities
3. Moving
4. Annoying parents/admin/pastor.

I’d add to that a lack of curricular supports. Good curricula costs money and takes planning to implement. There also need to be materials for remediation and extension. Catholic schools and other small privates with low budgets often rely on teachers to make their own materials and re-write outdated lessons in the curriculum. It’s a lot of extra work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reasons for turnover:
1. Low pay (especially for young single teachers)
2. Family responsibilities
3. Moving
4. Annoying parents/admin/pastor.

I’d add to that a lack of curricular supports. Good curricula costs money and takes planning to implement. There also need to be materials for remediation and extension. Catholic schools and other small privates with low budgets often rely on teachers to make their own materials and re-write outdated lessons in the curriculum. It’s a lot of extra work.

This is true for the public schools, at least in NoVA. Diocese of Arlington Catholic schools have textbooks and workbooks for most subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reasons for turnover:
1. Low pay (especially for young single teachers)
2. Family responsibilities
3. Moving
4. Annoying parents/admin/pastor.

I’d add to that a lack of curricular supports. Good curricula costs money and takes planning to implement. There also need to be materials for remediation and extension. Catholic schools and other small privates with low budgets often rely on teachers to make their own materials and re-write outdated lessons in the curriculum. It’s a lot of extra work.

This is true for the public schools, at least in NoVA. Diocese of Arlington Catholic schools have textbooks and workbooks for most subjects.

Ha! My child’s Catholic in DC didn’t have ink in their copy machine for days so some students got held up on material needed. Not the first time this type of situation has happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SMS has been a mess for a while. Several years ago a teacher had to leave in the middle of the year due to a criminal investigation. I have heard stories of unqualified teachers. Aides are being put in the classroom with no experience.

A friend of mine once told me that Catholic school is 90% of public school work for75% of public school pay. Catholic doesn’t have some of the benefits of independent like small class sizes. Catholic school has 24-28 kids in a class some with learning issues.

I hope St. Mary’s can get a good principal who can attract high quality staff AND stand up to the pastor. ( That is a whole nother problem).

Agree. The St. Mary’s parish pastor is not very priestly - in addition to the school renovations that cost millions (& demanded donations during the pandemic, apparently he had to be talked off the ledge from the Basilica renovation. He’s a trip. The worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours has lots of stability and alumni who come back to teach. Class sizes are around 15.

Which school?

Woods

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours has lots of stability and alumni who come back to teach. Class sizes are around 15.

Which school?

Woods

Eh, I view it differently. Woods has lost 88 percent of the teachers who were working there a decade ago. (Those were full-time teaching staff, as opposed to admin, facilities, or IT.) Their average annual rate of loss in that time has been around 14%, on par with the national rate of teacher attrition from Catholic schools. Some administrative positions at the school have also had high rates of of turnover. Woods is on its third assistant head of school in a decade, and has also had several directors of development in that time too. While it is great that alumni return to the school, a growing proportion of positions at the school are held by alumni and by those who are family members to other staffers. To me that looks like a school that is having trouble recruiting qualified applicants from the community.

[Anonymous]

Here is the bottom line: the Catholic Church has a serious child problem. Run it like a business. It’s time to put money into Catholic schools and stop
Treating it like a charity. It is a failure at school charity. Bring your A game in resources and pay the teachers well. Invest in school physical plants. Place the old pastors into semi retirement - they don’t understand education today. The rest will follow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line: the Catholic Church has a serious child problem. Run it like a business. It’s time to put money into Catholic schools and stop
Treating it like a charity. It is a failure at school charity. Bring your A game in resources and pay the teachers well. Invest in school physical plants. Place the old pastors into semi retirement - they don’t understand education today. The rest will follow.

Some are run like businesses. Catholic schools are falling out of favor. People don't find them more attractive than public schools. Many Catholic schools have closed or will close soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line: the Catholic Church has a serious child problem. Run it like a business. It’s time to put money into Catholic schools and stop
Treating it like a charity. It is a failure at school charity. Bring your A game in resources and pay the teachers well. Invest in school physical plants. Place the old pastors into semi retirement - they don’t understand education today. The rest will follow.

NP-I'll also add that it's disheartening to see that Catholic school has become completely watered down from what it once was. No emphasis on excellence or on the classics. Religion is an afterthought. Poor administrators and poor leaders. They take the lead from public schools, when they should steer in the completely opposite direction! If there is no investment in children who exactly do they think will be filling their pews on Sundays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good question to ask your board or your pastor or powers that be would be:

As teachers gain more experience or get more education (Masters, Masters +30, etc.) by what rate is their salary increased?

Since the data that master's degrees have no real effect on teacher effectiveness is extremely robust, I would hope that rate is zero.

Experience is another matter -- first year teachers are, on average, pretty terrible, but they improve rapidly. Peak is around ten years of experience, after which there's a slow decline.