Each week, we share a story about Catholic schools and what they mean to communities across the country.
This week, I want to share another story: Yours.
Catholic Americans are the single largest religious group in our country. 21% of Americans, or almost 70 million people, have a connection to the Church.
What’s more, Catholic schools make up the majority of private schools in America, with schools of all sizes and types across the country serving serving millions of students.
Yet Catholic schools across the country are struggling. School choice policies can save them.
And you can make sure your elected officials support school choice.
The next story told could be how supporters of Catholic schools stepped up and made sure schools could stay open and keep serving their communities.
Elected officials need to hear from the countless supporters of Catholic schools. We want to make that easy for you to do.
That support can look like:
Sending an email to your elected officials when they are considering a school choice bill that would help save Catholic Schools
Calling your elected officials to ask them to support school choice and Catholic schools
Sharing your story about what parochial education means to you
Catholic schools are facing historically tough odds. You can fight back. Stay tuned for more opportunities to do just that.
Recently, I told you about Heart of Mary school in Mobile, Alabama. This school had stood on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement and was fighting to stay open, turning to the community for help.
Catholic schools across the country are in similar situations, as the old financial model faces historic strain after the pandemic.
Especially in states with robust school choice, things are turning in the right direction, but fundamental challenges remain.
Too many parents simply cannot afford the education their children need, and too many schools take on regular financial losses as they work to serve everyone anyway.
For Heart of Mary, though, there is good news. The Root reports:
Heart of Mary Catholic School was facing the same budget challenges that many parochial schools around the country are grappling with. And the school faced the possibility of closing at the end of the 2022 school year. That is until an online fundraising campaign brought in more than $450,000 to help keep the doors open…
Heart of Mary Catholic School was established in 1901. During a time when Alabama’s constitution disenfranchised Black people, the school provided quality education for Black children. It also became a place of refuge and a critical meeting site for people of color. In the Civil Rights Era, many Heart of Mary nuns and priests worked side by side with civil rights advocates, participating in demonstrations throughout the community.
We are fighting for a world in which every school can stay open. As Heart of Mary’s experience shows, parochial schools are an integral part of the community, and their closure will have ripple effects for years to come.
In communities small and large, Catholic schools offer academic excellence, spiritual nourishment, a safe place for families in need, and a hub for efforts toward justice in the community.
Even as we celebrate the news from Heart of Mary, we know that private fundraising alone cannot make up the gap for the countless schools across the country facing similar struggles.
School choice offers the solution.
It lets families keep some of their tax dollars to use at the school of their choice. It allows schools like Heart of Mary across the country stay open.
PS: Keep reading to hear a story about how school choice helped a Florida student attend a Catholic high school in Miami
I come from a large family. I am the youngest of four brothers and six sisters. I love my siblings, but I don’t want to be like them because most of them didn’t finish high school. They work long hours and are still barely getting by. I knew that to be different, I had to go to a good high school, then a good college, and get a good degree to live a good life. It is important to me that I get a high-quality education.
After my father passed away from cancer when I was 10, my family always seemed to struggle. But, when I was beginning middle school, we experienced some extreme hardships that forced my family to move from up North to Miami, FL. When we first moved here, I attended my district public school. I decided to change schools. To attend a safer and better middle school, I had to wake up extremely early to catch two buses and a train.
When I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my mother was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Some days were so bad that she couldn’t walk. She decided to move in with one of my older sisters up North for extra assistance.
I’ve always tried to stay focused on my goals and maintain a positive attitude. So, when I heard about Christopher Columbus High School, I knew I wanted to attend. I thought this school would be the best option for me and my future if I wanted to do something with my life. I had to find a way to stay in Miami and pay private school tuition. The school is Catholic and Marist. I am neither. I didn’t care about the religious differences; I maintained focused on getting a quality education.
St. Nicholas Cathedral School in Chicago has become a hub for Ukrainian families fleeing the war. Since the violence began, 17 students from Ukraine have enrolled.
The school, which has about 160 students, many of whom are Ukrainian-American, has begun fundraising to support students who have arrived with nothing.
On Monday, the students gathered with other schools in the area to pray for peace.
Assistant Principal Lisa Swytnyk knows that the needs will continue. She said that the school expects more students to arrive, but it’s hard to say when. “It’s not like we know before. They just show up … here or next door at the church, and they bring them here,” she told Block Club Chicago.
One thing is clear. When the students arrive, St. Nicholas will be there to meet their needs.
Because that’s what parochial schools do. In times of war or tragedy, or just in the everyday challenges of life, Catholic schools step up to meet academic, spiritual, and practical needs every single day.
And when a school closes because it cannot sustain itself any more, it has ripple effects far beyond just textbooks and tests.
Families want choices, more than ever before, but many cannot afford to pay out of pocket for the schools their children need. Schools regularly offer steep discounts and operate at a loss to keep students in school, but this solution is temporary.
School choice offers the solution for helping parochial schools stay around for years to come.
Thank you for standing with students.
PS: Here’s how one Cleveland teacher works to help children meet their full potential
A few weeks ago, a student in Molly Hanna’s first-grade class at St. Thomas Aquinas in Cleveland answered a question correctly—something that happens hundreds of times a day in our schools. This time, it was a question about vowel sounds. Molly explains: “I wrote down the words ‘port’ and ‘part’ on the board. I asked my students to hold up 1 finger if ‘port’ was the correct way to spell ‘part’ and to hold up 2 fingers if ‘part’ was the correct way to spell ‘part.’”
While Molly sometimes tells students “correct” or “good job” for getting the right answer, this time, she rewarded the correct response with another question. “Tell me why,” she asked one child… While these few seconds of a first grade class may seem simple and routine, they didn’t happen by accident. That week, Molly had intentionally decided to choose moments in her lessons when she would ask students to stretch correct responses for an important reason: she wants students to “further their understanding of the content I’m teaching.”
Like athletes who achieve excellence by mastering the fundamentals of their sports, teachers can hone the most basic tools of the classroom, like questions, to amplify student learning.
Thomas Carroll is the superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Boston, and he believes they can. In the last year, the schools he oversees have seen a surge in enrollment after historic struggles in prior years.
In a recent interview, he discusses what happened, and his belief that not only can Catholic schools save the Church — school choice can save Catholic schools.
He says public schools in Massachusetts stayed closed for so long during the pandemic that many have become “remediation factories, because they lost an entire year of instruction.” But, as soon as it was safe, Boston’s Catholic schools “decided early, and quite loudly, that we were going to be open. … That message resonated with parents.” The former public-school parents who switched to Catholic schools during the first year of COVID-19 decided to stay — and, in the second year, many of their neighbors followed suit.
You see, Catholic schools offer hope for the future — to countless families who would have no other options.
But in communities across the country, families simply have no options. They can’t afford to pay for an education their children need, and too many schools can no longer afford to make up the difference.
Catholic schools serve many critical needs for students across the country. In communities small and large, parochial schools allow students to live a fulfilled and successful life.
And as Superintendent Carroll points out, Catholic schools can have much larger significance for our community and our world.
You can be a part of keeping them around for the next generation.
Over the last few years, Catholic schools — and the communities they serve — have faced unprecedented challenges, but they are rebounding quickly. Especially in states with school choice programs, enrollment is going up.
But there’s a long way to go.
You can make sure the progress continues.
Thank you for standing with students.
PS: Ny’Reon Shuman has a blueprint for his future. Read on to hear how school choice is helping him make it a reality.
Ny’Reon Shuman has a blueprint for his future. The 17-year-old has designs on being an architect. He wants to own an architectural firm, one with offices around the world.
He wants to design a big house for his grandmother, Katherine Shuman, who adopted him when he was an infant. He calls her “Mom.”
“She’s made sacrifices after sacrifices to get me to be here,” Ny’Reon said. “She’s literally the person I do everything for. I know once I make it, there is nothing in the world she can’t have, because that’s my mom.” Once I make it. To the teachers and staff at Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville, Ny’Reon is making it now. “To me, he’s outside of the mold,” said Jackie Hardin, who has been Ny’Reon’s guidance counselor for the past four years.
Ny’Reon, a senior at Bishop Kenny, attends the Catholic school on a Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which is provided by corporate tax contributions to Step Up For Students. Ny’Reon has used the FTC Scholarship to attend a private school every year beginning with kindergarten.
“It’s been amazing,” Katherine said. “Can you see me drawing social security, trying to work and take care of him without a scholarship? Would have been no way I could have done it. It’s been a blessing to us because it paved the way for him.”
Now is a critical time to support Catholic schools and school choice, and you can be a part of this mission.
The last few years brought historic challenges, as schools were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and faced record enrollment losses.
Now, especially in states with robust school choice, things are turning around, but students need all of us to advocate for their rights to learn in schools that work for them, in good times and bad.
Despite once-in-a-generation struggles of the last few years, most Catholic schools remained open and provided instruction, even when many traditional public schools declined to do the same.
That’s one of the many reasons it is encouraging to see school choice programs help Catholic schools rebound.
But as the country faces yet more uncertainty and economic challenges, I am reminded that the risks remain.
School choice is the way to ensure families and schools can make it through tough times.
In the coming weeks, I look forward to updating you on ways you can make a difference in your community.
In the meantime, make sure to bookmark SupportCatholicSchools.com to keep up with updates, and make sure you’re signed up to support school choice in your community.
