Anonymous wrote:
...There are some kids from struggling middle class families that deserve to be there too. That work hard to pay the additional amount that isn't covered with FA. I feel guilty all the time and even worse when the fund phone calls come in. It is not because we could afford the whole tuition but because we could send our daughter to public and not take that 33%. I know where it comes from and I am grateful. Public sucked for my daughter. 5 years was 4 years too many. My son is doing okay. I would love for him to go to private too but financially it just wouldn't happen right now.

To the school that saw my daughter's drive and potential and offered us some FA, thank you!!! To those that contribute to the fund, thank you. For those that don't judge, thank you. Maybe my daughter will be donating in the future to help your grandkids go to a school if financial hardship hits you. Never know....

*round of applause*

PP, this is us too, with a few changes. We get 50%. Without that we wouldn't be scrimping and saving and taking worse vacations -- we'd be sending DD to our not-very-good public school. Believe me, we may not be "truly needy" but we truly need that FA in order to make private attainable.

We, too, hope that someday (in the not too distant future) we'll be contributing to FA, not consuming it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a link that works.

http://www.catholicacademies.org/

None of those schools are free for 100% of students. They have lower tuition, offer financial aid, and accept vouchers, but they aren't free.

WJA is a flat 300 a year for students. That's not free, but it covers all their meals (including dinner), after care, and their uniforms from the waist up, so my guess is that is no more and in most cases less than the cost of having a middle school student in public since they don't provide dinner as part of FARMS and after care isn't free.

WJA isn't a member of the organization linked above. I agree that WJA and San Miguel are effectively free, but neither is part of the CCA, and neither is an elementary school.

To be clear, I think that WJA, San Miguel, CCA, Center City and Don Bosco are all great things that the archdiocese has done for educating low income kids in DC. That list goes far beyond what the independent schools provide. But the PP that started this tangent stated that there were 5 Catholic elementary schools that offered free education to 100% of their students. I am often in a position to try and help families looking for schools, and so I questioned the statement because I'd love to know if such schools exist.

The only religious elementary school in DC that I know that's free for 100% of students is Bishop Walker.

Ok, fine. WJA is a Catholic 5th-8th school for boys. 100% of the students attending WJA pay 300 dollars a year. This fee covers 3 meals a day, morning and afterschool care/tutoring, uniform shirts, sweatshirts, etc. and extracurriculars. I'm assuming your quibble is either with my addition to the CCA post or that I lumped WJA in with the elementaries. As someone else mentioned, K-8 is Catholic elementary. And WJA is a Catholic school which provides essentially free education even if it is not in the CCA. I never claimed it was, I was just adding another elementary grades free Catholic school to the list.

No, I'm "quibbling" with the fact that the CCA schools all have tuitions over $5,000, and that while some families pay less due to Financial Aid or vouchers it's far from the 100% you originally stated.

I will agree that $300 when uniforms and dinner are included rounds out to free, but $5,000 is a different calculation.

I think all of you find a few people who talk, and make the extreme accusation that all FA goes to those upper middle class families. I have been at private for 4 years and have yet to have anyone ever mention FA status of themselves or rumor anyone else. I can't imagine it makes the rounds in a circle of gossip some of you describe.

FA goes from 5-95% at most schools with 25-50% being the norm. Schools need economic and race diversity. They like acquiring kids that are breakout stars, athletic and academically smart. Legacy and rich kids aren't going to cover that. Maybe they could supply a good Lacrosse, tennis or swimming team but that is it. Many sports like track, softball, basketball, soccer are not played by the rich kids so much. Some pampered kids are not always the brightest either. So I love that the school my child goes to is diverse in color, religion, culture and economics. No one feels like an outcast.

We do receive partial FA - 33% for one child to go to private. My other goes to public. We live in a middle-class neighborhood and are still married. We work hard but we own a business that has been getting slaughtered the past 5 years. We are slowly climbing out of it and I took a part time job for extra money. My husband had to pull from his 401K to keep the business alive. We lowered our incomes and had to let go of a few employees too. We work our butts off. We aren't poor and we don't announce our financial troubles to the world so I am not sure what people think of us. We don't have new cars but they aren't 20yr old clunkers, none of us ever buy designer clothes, handbags, shoes but I shop smart so we don't wear rags. We do try and take a family vacation once a year and it usually only 4 days at the beach or Williamsburg because we can't stay away from the business for long. We also give our kids one activity a season to sign up for outside of school.

So what I am trying to say is, don't judge a book by it's cover. It is obvious that we are not rich and it is obvious we are not scraping by on pennies. But the 33% allows my daughter to attend a school we could not otherwise afford. Sure we could stop our 1 long beach weekend and one sport activity for each kid and probably get by only getting 25% but we appreciate getting that little extra to help us sustain normalcy for our son and daughter.

I can tell you this. My daughter contributes to her school. She is in the highest of math classes, gets straight A's, is in a sport every season and also 2 clubs. We go to every event we can. I help with teacher appreciation every year. My daughter donates part of her babysitting money back to the school's FA and gives it one lump sum in the Fall, last 2 years it was $100. Her idea, not mine. We donate $250 each year to get the percentage of participation higher.

So maybe I look like one of those people you would complain about. We own a business, we live in a middle class neighborhood, no single mom. We drive a decent minivan. We attend events and try to save up for things at the school that may cost. We don't receive any FA for field trips or out of school activities. But I would not change the money we do spend for her to go there. The changes in her confidence, personality, happiness is worth it. She loves her school and there is no doubt once we get a little more income, we will contribute back. Maybe even go to less or no FA. And there is no doubt she will be off to college and leading a good life, she will give back as well. That is where a lot of endowment comes you know. Families that have left and are appreciative of what they received and give back AFTER their kids leave. And then graduates themselves.

So please think twice before deciding who, in your opinion, gets the FA. I am sure there are some that get it that may seem like they shouldn't. No system in the world works perfectly and unfortunately everyone in the world aren't super honest. Such is life. I think the schools try their best with what is presented to them. The schools just can't give out 95% tuition to all super poor people. The schools would be all rich, all poor - nothing in-between. There are some kids from struggling middle class families that deserve to be there too. That work hard to pay the additional amount that isn't covered with FA. I feel guilty all the time and even worse when the fund phone calls come in. It is not because we could afford the whole tuition but because we could send our daughter to public and not take that 33%. I know where it comes from and I am grateful. Public sucked for my daughter. 5 years was 4 years too many. My son is doing okay. I would love for him to go to private too but financially it just wouldn't happen right now.

To the school that saw my daughter's drive and potential and offered us some FA, thank you!!! To those that contribute to the fund, thank you. For those that don't judge, thank you. Maybe my daughter will be donating in the future to help your grandkids go to a school if financial hardship hits you. Never know....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a link that works.

http://www.catholicacademies.org/

None of those schools are free for 100% of students. They have lower tuition, offer financial aid, and accept vouchers, but they aren't free.

WJA is a flat 300 a year for students. That's not free, but it covers all their meals (including dinner), after care, and their uniforms from the waist up, so my guess is that is no more and in most cases less than the cost of having a middle school student in public since they don't provide dinner as part of FARMS and after care isn't free.

WJA isn't a member of the organization linked above. I agree that WJA and San Miguel are effectively free, but neither is part of the CCA, and neither is an elementary school.

To be clear, I think that WJA, San Miguel, CCA, Center City and Don Bosco are all great things that the archdiocese has done for educating low income kids in DC. That list goes far beyond what the independent schools provide. But the PP that started this tangent stated that there were 5 Catholic elementary schools that offered free education to 100% of their students. I am often in a position to try and help families looking for schools, and so I questioned the statement because I'd love to know if such schools exist.

The only religious elementary school in DC that I know that's free for 100% of students is Bishop Walker.

Ok, fine. WJA is a Catholic 5th-8th school for boys. 100% of the students attending WJA pay 300 dollars a year. This fee covers 3 meals a day, morning and afterschool care/tutoring, uniform shirts, sweatshirts, etc. and extracurriculars. I'm assuming your quibble is either with my addition to the CCA post or that I lumped WJA in with the elementaries. As someone else mentioned, K-8 is Catholic elementary. And WJA is a Catholic school which provides essentially free education even if it is not in the CCA. I never claimed it was, I was just adding another elementary grades free Catholic school to the list.

At my dd's school there were some really poor families from SE who sent their kids on big FA packages. OP I don't really think it's helpful to worry about it. It only causes resentment. If you can afford it ...great. If not, and you get FA...then good for you.

Anonymous wrote:Catholic schools have 5 elementary schools that are 100% free for all children that attend. They go on to the Catholic high schools, I imagine, on FA.

I would like to correct this statement.

Catholic schools have 5 elementary schools (K-8, 1 is only middle school) that are 95% free for a majority of the children that attend. They go on to the Catholic high schools, I imagine, on FA.

Some go on vouchers but to their family they are free. The FA office does not believe in 100% free, they believe everybody needs to have some skin in the game so whether they pay $500 or $1000 or $2000 (the majority pay <$2000) they all pay something.

Some get free breakfast lunch and dinner and they get free tutoring and sports. Some get mentors that follow them through the Sophmore year of college.

Don Bosco, which is a HS, partner with businesses, kids received paid internships so they can pay their tuition.

These schools are esentially free to financially needy children.

Anonymous wrote:That is the problem with this site. You can't have an informational converstation without it being confrontational.

True nothing in life is free but those schools have the majority of the students that pay <$2000 to attend private school. (I can type that all out now that I am at a computer.) Many schools include meals, tutoring, athletics. Some schools run from 7am-7pm. (ish) Maybe it is 7:15-6:45, do we really need to argue every single solitary minute detail.

OP, There are at least 7 Catholic schools that give FA to "truly needy children". They feed to private HS's it is a great mission. I am very impressed everytime I encounter one of these children. There was an article in the Gazette about a homeless boy going to college after graduating from Don Bosco.

Go ahead pick the minute details apart but the Catholic schools do a very good job at just this, providing eduction to truly needy children. They also have schools with program dedicated to kids with Special Needs. Bravo!

I'm not arguing. Someone (you?) stated that something existed. As someone who has reason to want to know of low cost or free educational options in DC, I asked for more information. I repeatedly praised the Catholic schools in DC, and agree 100% that they are doing a lot more to educate low income kids than that independent schools, and that they deserve a lot of credit for it.

But to say that there are Catholic elementary schools in DC where 100% of the students don't pay tuition is inaccurate. To argue that you wrote 100% instead of "many" or "some" because you weren't at a computer is a little odd, since they're each 4 characters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a link that works.

http://www.catholicacademies.org/

None of those schools are free for 100% of students. They have lower tuition, offer financial aid, and accept vouchers, but they aren't free.

WJA is a flat 300 a year for students. That's not free, but it covers all their meals (including dinner), after care, and their uniforms from the waist up, so my guess is that is no more and in most cases less than the cost of having a middle school student in public since they don't provide dinner as part of FARMS and after care isn't free.

WJA isn't a member of the organization linked above. I agree that WJA and San Miguel are effectively free, but neither is part of the CCA, and neither is an elementary school.

To be clear, I think that WJA, San Miguel, CCA, Center City and Don Bosco are all great things that the archdiocese has done for educating low income kids in DC. That list goes far beyond what the independent schools provide. But the PP that started this tangent stated that there were 5 Catholic elementary schools that offered free education to 100% of their students. I am often in a position to try and help families looking for schools, and so I questioned the statement because I'd love to know if such schools exist.

The only religious elementary school in DC that I know that's free for 100% of students is Bishop Walker.

In Catholic schools, elementary is K-8. BTW so they are elementary school, except Don Bosco. Though WJS was only middle for a while they have 5th grade and are expanding.