Reply to Any update on St. Bart's?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A multi-year closure isn’t feasible.  Families in younger grades would leave in droves and then you’d be running the place even further into the red by having the same expenses going out yet less and less tuition coming in.

And unless a parish school has some magic money coming in from somewhere or is doing without any specials/technology/etc, none of them are operating viably with classes of 15-17.  It’s just not possible.

St. Bart’s is surrounded by other good parish schools.  The area is almost saturated in fact with Mercy, Lourdes, Little Flower, and Blessed Sacrament just minutes away and deChantal, Holy Cross, St. Raphael’s, St. Elizabeth’s, Victory, and Annunciation just slightly further.  Just as all the St. Ann’s families who wanted to stay in Catholic school were accommodated, so too will these families.[/quote]

You're being completely obtuse to the specific population of this school.  Only Holy Cross is at all comparable in character.  And schools can and do operate with those numbers, so it is indeed possible.
Further, a multi-year closure when families have agreed to tuition increases and raised funds is certainly possible.  Also, what does it mean to be a viable school?  None of them are paying for themselves, really. They're all subsidized.  So why can't a school with a very significant LD inclusion program be subsidized more?  We all know the church has the money.  It's a choice to spend it on a fancy facility rather than the families/students.  And with all the church has done with its money for far, far worse purposes, making this a dollars and cents decision with no consideration for the community is absurd.[/quote]

I’m looking at the class sizes in  the Strategic Data report for the ADW and I don’t see any other school operating with low class numbers like that across the board.  In fact, two schools I know to be in consultation with the Catholic Schools Office because of enrollment decline (because yes, it is a multi-year process of consultation before it gets to closure) have higher numbers per grade.  When St. Ann’s was in trouble there were parents out on the church steps week after week pitching for their school but it’s really, really hard to overcome a downward enrollment slide without a big change (like adding the early nursery.  That’s a smart move.)  They hopefully have looked into the reasons why more parishioners are not putting their kids in the school and tried to address that.  Is it cost?  Is it the quality of the academics/teaching/facility?  Is it the character of the school?  It has to be something.  And just as important to why people are staying out is why people are coming in.  You have to find what makes the school special and sell it.  It would be great if an inclusion program could be subsided more but that’s not going to happen with declining finances in the parish.  The less a school needs to be subsidized, the more viable it is.  Everyone know Sunday collections are down everywhere so I’m sure St. Bart’s is feeling it too.  [/quote]

Those are really good points. We're CCD parents because the public schools in the area (Bannockburn, Burning, Tree, Bradley Hills -- Whitman district) are very good, and have the kind of resources you can only have at a larger school. Is it true some classes at St Barts were less than 10 kids?

Still, I'm not sure the pastor is at fault here. I wouldn't expect a priest to understand the parochial school field -- isn't that what the head of school is for?[/quote]

Yes, the current 7th and 8th grades have 8-10 kids. The lower school's classes are 13-20, which is clearly healthier, and the pre-k and K pipeline is strong. [/quote]

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