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On this week’s edition of the program, Rick welcomes Alycia Beresford, who is the principal at the Mission Basilica in San Juan Capistrano. She is here today to share not only about this wonderful institution; but also about a HUGE milestone anniversary they are celebrating in 2018.
Be sure to visit their web site at missionbasilicaschool.org
Originally broadcast on 10/27/18
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) — In recent years, Catholic Charities school counselors have noticed an unsettling trend of more anxiety and less empathy among their young students.
A variety of factors, including increased screen time and social media usage, more homework and extracurricular activities, along with less recess and unstructured free time, is leaving children “missing out on connection-with each other and with their communities,” according to Catholic Charities counselor Melissa Smith.
“It sometimes seems like we’re putting out fires, and we wanted to be proactive instead,” said fellow Catholic Charities school counselor Amy Sturm, who began brainstorming the idea for a “kindness campaign” last spring. “We knew we needed to give kids active opportunities for them to be kind and connect with others.”
That realization has prompted all schools in the Diocese of Nashville to kick off their own incarnations of a yearlong kindness campaign.
“We’re very excited that the schools are running with this,” said Rebecca Hammel, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Nashville. “This is a very intentional effort to be who we’re called to be by Christ.”
By designing the kindness campaigns to run in all schools in the diocese for the entire school year, the counselors are hopeful that it will have a lasting and positive impact.
“It’s like preventive medicine,” said Smith, who counsels children and families at St. Edward School. If schools actively embrace a culture of kindness, she said, “hopefully we’ll avoid some anxiety, bullying and friend trouble,” and ultimately have less anxiety and depression among young people.
Some schools, including St. Edward, have been utilizing anti-bullying programs such as Olweus for years, but “we wanted to put a more positive spin on the language,” Smith told the Tennessee Register, Nashville’s diocesan newspaper.
“Even the littlest ones can understand acts of kindness,” said Marsha Wharton, principal of St. Edward.
At the school, which is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse schools in the diocese, “the kids are accepting and respectful of all different kinds of people,” she said, and the kindness campaign is an ideal way to reinforce respect for other cultures. “It’s a strength of St. Edward that the students learn to be kind and accepting of people different than them.”
“We’ve seen a decline in civility in the larger society and we don’t want that to be reflected in our schools,” said Smith.
“Kids are hard-wired for kindness, but they do need to be shown models of kindness,” she added.
The school counselors designed the campaign to intentionally weave empathy and kindness back into the schools and to better meet the social and emotional needs of students. But they knew it had to be accessible for teachers and parents and fun for students to get the necessary community buy-in.
Sturm, the counselor at Immaculate Conception School in Clarksville, helped design a kindness campaign kickoff event with the theme of “Mission Possible,” held earlier in September. The children were given cards identifying each one as an “official agent of kindness,” and given envelopes bearing special “missions” like “make someone else smile.”
“The kids were so excited to have these little missions,” said Sturm. “This will really help them become ‘agents of change.'”
At St. Edward, Smith helped organize a pep rally to kick off the kindness campaign and held an evening session with parents to talk about how they can model kindness at home as well as help their children cope with tough issues.
“For this to be successful at school, we also have to promote a culture of kindness at home,” she said.
Smith, along with other volunteers, plans to post affirming messages in the school restrooms. “A lot of times when kids get overwhelmed, that’s where they go, and wouldn’t it be nice when they went in there if they saw a note that says, ‘you are loved’?”
Each school may have their own twist on promoting kindness this school year, but “they are all taking the initiative to lift other people up,” Hammel said.
Generally, each school will set up a “kindness committee,” made up of teachers, parents and students to organize events or activities that help enrich the kindness experience on each school campus throughout the year.
Schools are encouraged to start and end each day with an intentional focus on kindness such as a short prayer, quote, or student recognition.
Catholic Charities counselors have also designed an online “kindness toolkit” full of age appropriate resources including books, videos and activity suggestions. The toolkit will have information readily available to teachers to implement in their classrooms.
At the heart of the kindness campaign, for all children in Catholic schools, “we’re called to love our neighbor,” Smith said. “And we show God’s love by how we love one another.”
The Diocese of Orange is pleased to announce new principals who will be leading several Catholic schools. These educational leaders bring strong credentials and extensive expertise in education to the Diocese of Orange Catholic schools.
St. Polycarp School, Stanton
Mary Flock, M.A.
Seventeen years ago, Mary Flock began her journey in Catholic education as a second-grade teacher at Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Habra. After teaching for five years, Flock transitioned to a leadership position at St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs as Dean of Discipline and multi-level Religion teacher. Flock felt a calling to go back to elementary school and she served as principal at St. Gertrude the Great Catholic School, a Seton Blended Learning Partner School in Bell Gardens. She currently serves on the Latino Enrollment Institute Leadership Team at the University of Notre Dame.
Mrs. Flock is happy to return to the Diocese of Orange as a principal at St. Polycarp School, a welcoming and accessible Catholic school that has been named to the prestigious Blended Learning Universe index in 2017. St. Polycarp is one of the 560 schools worldwide that received this designation. Flock holds a B.S. in Social Science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, a Catholic Leadership Certificate and a Masters in Catholic School Administration from Loyola Marymount University.
Christ Cathedral Academy, Garden Grove
Kathleen Mcguire, M.Ed.
Ms. McGuire comes to Christ Cathedral Academy an experienced administrator, curriculum developer, and community leader. She is excited to lead a learning community where students and adults partner toward individual and community aspirations. She said, “How blessed I am to not only have purposeful work that uses my professional education and experiences [and] allows me to live my faith in an actionable, impacting way.”
McGuire spent the last six years developing science and math curriculum for Science Rocks, a competitive educational program in Newport Beach. Additionally, she is involved in numerous organizations and serves on a number of boards including for Thomas House Family Shelter, Servite High School, Newport-Mesa Unified School District Parent Collaborative, and Our Lady Queen of Angeles Parish. Prior to her journey in Southern California, McGuire served as the first female and lay principal of Saint Mary’s College High School, a Lasallian Catholic coeducational college preparatory high school in North Berkeley. McGuire also served as a Director of Student Activities and Leadership at Curry College in Milton, CA, and a Director of Student Life at Mount Vernon Women’s College in Washington DC, where she also coordinated Teen Women Leadership Conference for underserved girls.
Ms. McGuire earned her B.A. and her M.Ed. from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. She looks forward to journeying with others at Christ Cathedral Academy. Her education guidepost is sourced from the patron Saint of teachers, St. John Baptist De La Salle, “You too can perform miracles by touching the hearts and minds of those entrusted to your care.”
Diocese of Orange presidents, principals, and teachers gathered at Santa Margarita Catholic High School for the diocese’s annual Educator’s Convocation on August 24.
As Superintendent Erin Barisano noted: “It was a day of faith, fellowship, and sharing as we looked to the future of Catholic schools in our diocese. We were blessed to have Dr. Leonard DeLorenzo as our keynote speaker who shared with us the importance of sharing stories of grace with our students, parents, and communities. Dr. DeLorenzo is a graduate of Mater Dei High School and is the director of Notre Dame Vision which is a program designed to help young adults find their true vocation. He offered a message of hope and inspired us to share our own faith stories as a way to build community at individual school sites and across the diocese.”
The Diocese of Orange is pleased to announce new principals who will be leading several Catholic schools. These educational leaders bring strong credentials and extensive expertise in education to the Diocese of Orange Catholic schools.
St. Catherine Of Siena, Laguna Beach
Dr. Jennifer Maan
Dr. Jennifer Maan comes from a family of educators with deep Catholic roots. Her mother, sister and brother-in-law were former Catholic school educators. One of them even taught at Saint Catherine years ago. Dr. Maan has taught in public and Catholic schools. She chose to go into Catholic school leadership because she is able to share her love of learning with students, while instilling a love of God and the Catholic faith.
Prior to her start at Saint Catherine, Dr. Maan served as the Director of Curriculum and a 7th-grade Language Arts teacher at Our Lady Queen of Angels Newport Beach. Dr. Maan has extensive classroom experience serving as a teacher at the Basilica School of Saint Mary in Virginia, Pioneer Middle School in Tustin, Del Cerro and Portola Hills Elementary Schools in Saddleback Valley Unified School District, and Los Robles Academy in Hacienda. Dr. Maan also has experience in higher education as an Assistant Professor of Education and Program Chair of the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program at Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. and as Deputy Director of Early Childhood Education Services at the Rosemount Center in Washington, DC
Dr. Maan attended Claremont Graduate University where she received both her M.A. and Ph.D in Education. She has an undergraduate B.A. in Art History from the University of California, San Diego. She holds a Tier I Administrative Services Credential from UCI and has a multiple subjects teaching credential with supplemental authorizations in art and science.
When she is not working, she loves running, practicing yoga, reading, cooking, and spending time with her family. She accompanied her husband on an overseas work assignment for two years in Amman, Jordan. While living in the Middle East, Dr. Maan and her husband traveled throughout the region including the Holy Land, Jordan, the Dead Sea in Egypt, and Sinai — St. Catherine’s Monastery!
St. Bonaventure School, Huntington Beach
Mrs. Kim White
Mrs. White came to St. Bonaventure in 2009 as teacher. She became a full-time Vice Principal in 2014 and transitioned the principal role this summer. Mrs. White has been a teacher mentor, WCEA/WASC accreditation coordinator, worked in performance standards development, building Professional Learning Communities to name a few. Mrs. White is a trainer for Renaissance Learning, Atlas/Rubicon Curriculum Mapping, and Sycamore Education Database.
“Considering the challenges affecting the greater field of education, the ability to educate students in the context of the broader view provided by Catholic teaching values keeps me excited by this ministry. Academically, students engage in content through the lenses of their Catholic identity. We are nurturing students to be the problem-solvers that will facilitate positive change in the world. This is a viewpoint unique to Catholic education, and the part of this ministry that inspires me to lead our school each day,” Mrs. White said.
Prior to her time at St. Bonaventure School, Mrs. White worked as a K-2 teacher at a private Christian School in Glendora and worked in sales and business management in Long Beach. Mrs. White received her B.A. in Business from National University, her M.A. in Education from Concordia University, and has her Clear Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from University of La Verne and her Clear Administrative Services from UCI. When Mrs. White is not working, she enjoys reading, paddle boarding, and spending quality time with her family and friends.
Denver, Colo., Sep 7, 2018 / 03:00 am (CNA/EWTN News) – Not long ago, introducing more technology into the classroom meant allowing third graders to play 15 minutes of Oregon Trail during recess time.
In recent years, particularly after the emergence of smartphones and other mobile devices circa 2012, for many schools it has meant an iPad for every student, laptops in every classroom.
However, research has begun highlighting the detrimental impacts of excessive screen time, particularly on developing brains and on education, sparking concerns among educators and parents. Even tech industry giants are starting to speak openly about the dangers of internet addiction and the need to monitor children’s screen time.
For Catholic schools, the issue is especially pressing, some school leaders say, because Catholic schools are concerned with the human and spiritual formation of their students.
Michael Edghill, principal of Notre Dame Catholic School in Wichita Falls, Texas, told CNA that his biggest concern is a tendency to let technology become the main driving force of education, rather than a tool of support for teachers and students.
“For a Catholic school, that is a bad paradigm to fall into because it takes a rightly formed person to undertake the task of human formation, which is the mission of Catholic education,” he said. “No machine or technological tool can appropriately engage in the formation of the soul.”
Jean Twenge is a psychologist and the author of “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.”
Twenge told CNA that her research found the “sweet spot” for screen time for teenagers should be about 2 hours per day “for mental health, happiness, and adequate sleep. Beyond that, the risks increase, topping out at the highest levels of use.”
Notably, but perhaps not unsurprisingly, most US teens report average daily screen times well over the recommended two hours.
In 2015, research group Common Sense Media reported that more half of US teenagers spend at least four hours a day on a screen, while 25 percent of teens reported even higher uses – more than eight hours daily – with the potential of detrimental effects.
“For example, teens who use electronic devices 5 or more hours a day are 71% more likely to have a risk factor for suicide than those using devices less than an hour a day,” Twenge said. “They are also 51% more likely to not sleep enough. Teens who are online 5 or more hours a day are twice as likely to be unhappy as those online less than an hour a day.”
As for educational impacts, research has also found that smartphones can impact a person’s ability to think simply by being within reach – even if they are turned off. Another study found that students taught in computer-less classrooms performed significantly better on tests than their counterparts taught in classrooms with iPads and computers.
The human, relational and educational concerns are why some Catholics schools are taking steps to limit, if not completely ban, the use of smartphones and iPads in the classroom.
St. Benedict Elementary in Natick, Mass. is one Catholic school that has taken the approach of not using electronic technology in the classroom at all, except for very limited ways in the higher grades.
Jay Boren, headmaster of St. Benedict, told CNA that this is because the classical academy was founded by parents who had a desire for their school to be different.
“There are studies that show that (student) memory retention is better when they have written the information as opposed to having typed it. There are also benefits to learning cursive,” Boren said.
“In addition, an environment that is not inundated with fast-paced technology…allows students to cultivate the ability to sustain attention, develop concentration, and appreciate silence, which are the necessary dispositions to ponder truth, beauty, and goodness. We feel that those skills, are more important at this age level than mastering a screen that they will certainly be exposed to throughout their life at other times.”
On the other hand, Fr. Nicholas Rokitka, OFM Conv., teaches at Archbishop Curley High School in Buffalo, New York, which implemented a 1-to-1 iPad to student program four years ago.
“My major concern about technology in the classroom is the inability of the students to focus on the topic at hand and listen to the teacher,” Rokitka told CNA. “It certainly has changed the way teachers and students interact.”
Rokitka said that games and entertainment are always a potential distraction with the iPads in the classroom. While he has his room set up in a way that allows him to monitor his students’ iPad use closely, such monitoring “takes up a lot of my energy.”
There have been some positive impacts, Rokitka noted – the school has saved a lot of paper using digital homework and tests, and performance trends can be more quickly and easily recognized and addressed.
However, he added that without intentionality behind its use, technology negatively change the way students relate to one another and the world.
“On a very fundamental level, technology changes how people interact with each other. If technology is accepted wholesale without and intention, it will do more harm than good. When digital communication and social media replace face-to-face interaction, the students lose their ability to communicate,” he said. “This problem is way larger than just schools, but ultimately teachers and schools can have a dramatic input on how children learn how to use technology.”
Twenge said that she recommends schools ban the use of cellphones not only in the classroom, but during lunch as well, in order to give students a chance to interact with each other without a screen.
In interviews with students for her research, Twenge discovered students who would feel depressed and left out while their fellow students ignored them at lunch, favoring their phones instead, she wrote in the New York Daily News.
“A no-phones-at-school rule would also help teens develop invaluable social skills. More and more managers tell me that young job applicants don’t look them in the eye and seem to be uncomfortable talking to people face-to-face. If our students are going to succeed in the workplace, they need more practice interacting with people in person,” she wrote.
“They can get that right there at school – if they aren’t constantly on their phones.”
Edghill said that his biggest guiding principle in the use of technology in school has been intentionality – which is exactly why the school banned cell phone use in school during the school day.
“It was an intentional decision based on the fact that there was little to no educational benefit and a whole slew of potential and real problems,” he said.
“The unplanned side effect is that the students actually talk to one another before school in the mornings now instead of just staring at their individual screens.”
A father to four children between 14 and 3, Edghill noted that he and his wife try to implement the same intentionality with technology use at home, by enforcing limits and being consistent with them, though he admitted there has been a learning curve.
“I do think that the more time that they watch screens, the less creative and the less curious they are. But it is a constant battle. It may be one of the most counter-cultural things that we can do for our kids,” he said. “And that is saying something as a Catholic.”
It’s also important to note that technology is simply a tool, and “not an evil,” he said.
“The pope is active on social media. My bishop is active on Twitter. But it is for the greater good of reaching out to people in order to create the opportunity for an authentic encounter with Christ,” he said.
“If the technology is replacing humanity as opposed to being used as a tool to advance humanity, that is the problem…If we miss the human element of the teacher, of person-to-person dialogue and debate, of human experience, then we can’t fully do our part to cooperate in the formation of the human person.”
In the next several weeks OC Catholic will be featuring new principals at Diocese of Orange Catholic schools.
The Diocese of Orange is pleased to announce new principals who will be leading several Catholic schools. These educational leaders bring strong credentials and extensive expertise in education to the Diocese of Orange Catholic schools.
Sts. Simon and Jude, Huntington Beach
Dr. Colette Marie O’Bannion
Dr. O’Bannion comes to Sts. Simon and Jude after serving as Assistant Principal at Holy Spirit School in the Diocese of San Jose. “My amazing mother was a Catholic school teacher for 35 years. Witnessing her lead young people spiritually and academically inspired me to follow in her footsteps,” Dr. O’Bannion said.
In addition to her experience at Holy Spirit School, Dr. O’Bannion served as the Director of Professional Development at Monticello Academy in Santa Clara. She created, planned, and facilitated all teacher training and workshops. She was also one of the key stakeholders for Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) Accreditation Process.
Dr. O’Bannion received her B.A. in Speech Communication from Cal State University Long Beach, her M.A., in Teaching and Learning from Santa Clara University, and her doctorate in Education from Chapman University. She has Academy of Blended Learning Certification and is a Drexel School Administrator. While at Chapman, Dr. O’Bannion took a research assignment for Project SMART and the Read-Write Cycle Project. She was also a leader, trainer, and facilitator for all K-12 Standards-Based Educational Programs at the Disneyland Resort with programs that include: Animation Magic, California, Here I Come!, Leadership in Action: Pursuit of Excellence, World of Physics: Energy and Waves, and World of Physics: Properties of Motion.
When Dr. O’Bannion is not at work, she enjoys performing in musicals, traveling, reading, spending time with family and friends, and serving as a board member for two nonprofits (Youth Focus, Inc. and Children’s Musical Theater San Jose).
St. Junipero Serra Catholic School, Rancho Santa Margarita
Alison Daley
Alison Daley returns to St. Junipero Serra School after being a principal at St. Polycarp in Stanton, where she led the school to achieve Blended Learning Universe (BLU) that is recognized internationally. Daley looks forward to being a principal for Grades 5-8 at St. Junipero Serra and leading, alongside Principal Carol Reiss (Preschool – Grade 4) and President Angeline Trudell.
Daley has been a Catholic school educator for 24 years. “My father and mother, both life-long educators, empowered me to embrace my faith in God as the driving force in my life and ministry in Catholic education,” she said.
Daley received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California San Diego, her M.A. in Educational Counseling from the University of San Diego, and her M.Ed. in Cross Cultural Teaching from National University. When she is not working, Daley loves spending time with her husband Tim and her three daughters. She also enjoys going to the beach and ocean swimming.
Although women religious — once synonymous with Catholic education — have been disappearing from U.S. classrooms in recent decades, many Catholic schools are taking extra steps to make sure that even as these sisters age or their numbers decrease, the charisms that infused the schools they founded will not be lost.
This was the challenge faced by the Oldenburg Academy of the Immaculate Conception in Oldenburg, Indiana. The school, founded by the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg in 1852, came under laity supervision in 1994 and no longer has any women religious on staff.
Yet their spirit still lives within the walls they established 166 years ago.
“The Franciscan values have helped me to understand my role in this world,” said outgoing senior Rachel Stoll, one of the 200 plus students at the academy. She readily reeled off three of the values held dear to the Oldenburg Franciscans: care of creation, prayer and dignity of the human person.
“One of the unique values that the religious men and women brought to their Catholic schools was a distinct charism in addition to their catechetical formation,” said John Schoenig, senior director of teacher formation and education policy for the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education.
“Your life would have been much different as a Catholic school student if you were in a school run by the Daughters of Charity than if you were in a school run by Benedictines,” he said. “It’s because the charism would have been there.”
That notion of charism in the schools eroded as religious vocations declined and Catholic schools were staffed by lay teachers who came from many different universities, worshipped in many different parishes and had many different approaches to education, Schoenig said.
But in recent years Catholic schools nationwide have recognized the need to rediscover the charisms of their founding religious orders.
Barbara McGraw Edmondson, chief leadership and program officer at the National Catholic Educational Association, said this understanding is emphasized each year at annual NCEA conventions when speakers stress: “We stand on shoulders of giants.”
“And we really do,” she added, noting that it’s crucial for schools to keep that alive in any way they can because the founding orders are “such a gift and a legacy of Catholic education.”
At Oldenburg Academy, values of the Franciscan charism are emblazoned on a huge black-and-white mural of smiling women religious that graces the front hallway.
But as this school has discovered, preserving the legacy of its founding order requires a commitment deeper than slogans or photographic displays.
“It has to be intentional. It isn’t just going to happen. You have to make a decision to work on it,” said Oldenburg president Diane Laake, who added that the school is “doing a better job at claiming and naming and identifying the charism than we did 30 and 40 years ago.”
Now the school has a specific Franciscan curriculum in religion classes and group trips to Assisi, the Italian hometown of St. Francis. A Franciscan value is also chosen each year to define school activities.
“It is truly a Franciscan school,” said Franciscan Sister Marjorie Niemer, who acts as a liaison between the academy and the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg. “We are extremely proud of what the administration and the board of directors has been able to do to promote Catholic education, Franciscan education.”
The school’s Franciscan identity is bolstered by the close proximity of the sisters, since the academy is on the same campus as the Oldenburg motherhouse, where about 120 of the 183 remaining sisters still live. Students frequently pass sisters in the hallway, sometimes lending an arm to help a sister’s unsteady feet.
The students also have the opportunity to “adopt” a sister and eat lunch with her once every two weeks, in a school-sponsored program called “Adopt-a-Sis.”
“I feel like I’m really close to them,” said Nicholas Hoff, an incoming sophomore. “They almost seem like family to me.”
St. Ursula Academy in Cincinnati similarly focuses on promoting the spirit of its founding order, even though only seven sisters remain in the Ursuline Sisters of Cincinnati. The all-girls school preserves its charism by focusing on the spiritual development of the lay faculty.
“I put on a yearly retreat, we run small faith groups for our faculty and staff, we put on board of trustee retreats,” said Liz Curran, coordinator of Ursuline Spirit Initiatives. Hers is a full-time staff position entirely dedicated to preserving the school’s charism.
A small on-site museum contains the history and some mementos of the Ursuline Sisters of Cincinnati as well as the story of the order’s founder, Italian St. Angela Merici. The school’s motto is that each student will be a “thinker, leader, nurturer and prophet” just like the saint.
The order’s founder “challenged herself to be the best she could be; she definitively committed to building a better world,” explained St. Ursula Academy president and alumna Lelia Keefe Kramer.
“St. Angela’s life is very relevant to what we’re asking of the girls today,” Kramer told Catholic News Service.
Another Ursuline-founded school system, Sacred Heart Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, works to keep the school’s charism alive for students of all ages.
Founded in 1859 by the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, the campus now contains four separate schools that educate preschoolers through high school students.
Seniors at the all-girls high school, Sacred Heart Academy, take a charism course about the history and spirituality of the Ursulines and the preschool students experience this history firsthand by interacting with about 20 of the 61 remaining sisters regularly; exchanging notes, crafts and prayers. A few times each year the sisters travel from their assisted living facility to visit the classrooms.
“We’re very proud of our Ursuline sisters and I think that this keeps that spirit alive,” said Lisa Houghlin, executive director of Sacred Heart Preschool.
“We’ll always find a way to show that connection,” she added.
If anyone could rest on their laurels, it’s Catholic schools for all they have accomplished in their U.S. history, educating in the faith and teaching children of all backgrounds in cities and rural areas across the country.
Acknowledging these past achievements alone might not be enough to propel these schools into the future, but it’s an important first step because it recognizes the need to tap into — and promote and market — the spirit of the early Catholic schools and their founders and to adapt that creativity and innovation to today’s world.
“The future of Catholic education: It’s bright. It’s bright as long as our Catholic educators, our church, our leaders, have an open mind” and make sure what they do, how they teach and interact with young people is relevant, said Barbara McGraw Edmondson, chief leadership and program officer at the National Catholic Educational Association.
She said it’s also crucial for Catholic schools’ future that educators and church leaders understand and not shy away from the culture young people live in today.
“We need to step right in … and show them the way to navigate a very complex world,” she added.
Edmondson said school leaders want Catholic schools to be what Pope Francis has asked of the church: to be “disciple-making places.” And she hoped they would evangelize in such a way that Catholics and non-Catholics would say: “I want that for my child. I want to be part of that community because I feel a goodness about it.”
No doubt that was part of the intention of the early Catholic schools, to educate, but also educate in the faith, in mission territories and then in cities after the huge influx of Catholic immigrants in the late 19th century.
Catholic schools had plenty of support too. The First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852 specifically urged every Catholic parish in the country to establish its own school and these schools, primarily led by women religious, flourished. By 1920, there were 6,551 Catholic elementary schools teaching 1.8 million students and by the mid-1960s — the height of Catholic school enrollment — 4.5 million students attended more than 13,000 schools.
That hardly compares with today’s statistics.
The most recent NCEA figures, for 2017-2018, show Catholic school enrollment at 1.8 million students in 6,352 Catholic schools.
In 2017-2018, 16 new schools opened and 110 consolidated or closed, but those that closed include some that consolidated and re-opened as new entities. NCEA breaks down the closures to a net loss of 66 elementary schools and 11 secondary schools. The report also notes that 1,872 schools have a waiting list for admission.
“The trend line does not look good, but recently it’s balanced out, “said Peter Litchka, associate education professor and director of the educational leadership program at Loyola University Maryland.
He noted the shift in demographics in recent years, causing Catholic schools to close as families have moved out of cities. But he also pointed out, as many have said before, that at the height of Catholic school enrollment, it didn’t cost as much to attend these schools, because faculty and staff members were often women religious who worked for low salaries.
“Now, most, if not all, are lay teachers,” he said, noting that tuition reflects current wages and health benefits.
And that, for many, is the bottom line because for many families, it’s just too expensive to send their children to Catholic school.
Litchka told Catholic News Service that most Catholic schools now have enrollment managers who help families tap into available resources to help with tuition.
He also said schools are focusing on promoting what they do day in and day out — being Catholic — which is a drawing point regardless of where people are from and can attract new students.
In response to rising costs, Catholic school leaders emphasize that 29 states and the District of Columbia have some sort of school scholarship program in place — meaning vouchers, tax credits or education savings accounts.
Schools are stepping up to the plate with some innovative fundraising and school tuition models. Dioceses are establishing education endowments and religious orders are supporting schools such as Cristo Rey that offer work study programs to supplement tuition.
One parish in Wisconsin, St. Joseph’s in Hazel Green, tackled the tuition challenge for parents head-on by announcing plans to significantly restructure student tuition this year, essentially making it tuition free, supported 100 percent by the parish.
In an interview this spring with The Visitor, newspaper of the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, Tom Burnford, NCEA president, said that Catholic schools are the responsibility of the entire church.
“They’re a ministry of the church in the same way the church reaches out to the poor. Catholic schools are not just for those who ‘use them’ — as in the parents who have kids in a Catholic school. They are an evangelizing ministry of the Catholic Church and a very successful one. They form citizens who are successful in this life — in secular jobs, secular roles in the world — and also in faith and in service to the church. So Catholic schools belong to the entire Catholic population.”
In addition to looking to cut costs, schools are also looking to promote themselves better and to focus on their foundational roots.
Edmondson said every year during the NCEA convention, speakers emphasize: “We stand on shoulders of giants,” referring to the women religious who founded so many Catholic schools.
“And we really do,” she added, noting that it’s crucial for schools to keep the orders’ charisms alive, something many schools are working hard to do – from stressing the school’s history to including those from the order, even aging religious, in school-sponsored events.
Another key aspect to the enrollment factor is the need to include more Latino students.
As Edmondson put it: “If we want our schools to flourish, if we want our enrollment to increase and not be on a decline, we have to engage those who are our church today.”
She told CNS it is a commitment of NCEA and other Catholic organizations, universities and dioceses to examine: “How do we find our way and how do we make ourselves the place where Hispanic families say, whatever it is, whatever the hurdles are” they would send their children to Catholic schools.
As someone who attended Catholic schools, sent her children there, taught there and was a Catholic school superintendent, Edmondson said her overall perspective of Catholic education is: “I truly believe in it and I believe it has the ability to make a difference in the world.”
Now as an NCEA official who visits Catholic schools all over the country, she remains convinced “there is something good there.”
As a leader in Catholic education, she added: “I want that goodness to continue to grow.”
WASHINGTON (CNS) — A new study conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that children in Catholic schools are less disruptive and have more self-control than their peers in non-Catholic or public schools.
The authors of the study said they believe that examining students’ self-discipline is particularly important in light of the ongoing debate about externally imposed discipline, such as detention and suspension, and methods of punishment used in public schools.
“Clearly, an approach that fosters self-discipline is preferable to one that relies on externally imposed discipline. So if Catholic schools have succeeded in developing such an approach, we ought to pay more attention to what they are doing and how they are doing it,” said the report, released May 31.
A lack of research into this aspect of Catholic schooling also motivated the authors of the study. Many studies have been conducted to investigate the academic effects of Catholic schools–according to the report, their general conclusion is that “students in Catholic schools achieve at higher levels”–but little research has been done into other aspects of student development at Catholic schools.
Since Catholic schools generally try to both educate their students on an intellectual level and try to form their students so that they will be pious, disciplined, and have good character, the authors of the study believe that understanding the effects and possible benefits of a Catholic education requires understanding both the intellectual education and personal formation Catholic schools set out to provide.
The study drew three conclusions:
— Students in Catholic schools are less likely to be disruptive than those in other private schools or public schools.
— Students in Catholic schools exhibit more self-control than those in other private schools or public schools. “Specifically, they were more likely to control their temper, respect others’ property, accept their fellow students’ ideas and handle peer pressure,” it said.
— Students in Catholic schools exhibit more self-discipline than those in other public schools. “There is at least some evidence that attending Catholic school may benefit all sorts of children,” it said.
In many cases the gap between the frequencies with which students at Catholic schools and students at other schools either behaved well or avoided behaving poorly increased over time, hinting that the continued focus and value Catholic schools place on self-discipline continually reinforces its importance and helps foster it in students.
The report also concludes that, if the findings reflect a “Catholic schools effect” of some kind, non-Catholic schools would benefit from placing explicit value on self-discipline, as Catholic schools do, and implicitly trying to promote it.
The authors also speculate that Catholic schools benefit from the power of religion to affect people’s behavior, although they admit that the exact means by which this happens is unclear.
They added, “We should not underestimate the power of religion to positively influence a child’s behavior — and shouldn’t restrict families’ choices on the basis of religion.”
Michael Gottfried, associate professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and Jacob Kirksey, a doctoral student at the same university, analyzed the data and co-wrote the report.
They took the data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten from 1999 and 2011. These reports contain data on a nationally representative sample of children entering kindergarten in that year, and it follows them throughout their educational careers. The data comes from teachers, who record the frequency of selected behaviors among the children.
This study used data on behaviors beginning in kindergarten and continuing to fifth grade.
The institute said that as far as it knows, Gottfried and Kirksey’s is the first study “to explore the potential effects of Catholic schooling on elementary students’ self-discipline.”
“The clearest implication of our results is that Catholic schools offer an important alternative for families who may be dissatisfied with their local public schools — particularly if they are interested in cultivating a sense of self-discipline and restraint,” the authors said.
