CATHOLIC SEE FINANCE PROBLEMS FREE

Embedded in these approaches are different answers to the big questions of Catholic education: How much power should be given to the laity and how much retained by the hierarchy? How do we balance independence with the call to be in solidarity with each other? What is the primary mission of Catholic education? And how do we pay for it? These alternative models-and there are many-do not offer a single vision for the future of Catholic schools. Today Catholic schools are shifting authority from pastors and principals to other sources.

CATHOLIC SEE FINANCE PROBLEMS FREE

Uhl and his colleagues, these changes let principals focus on coaching teachers, free up pastors to focus on the school’s spiritual life, offer the laity more robust opportunities for leadership, and-crucially-ensure that Catholic schools maximize educational quality and financial sustainability. But today Catholic schools are shifting some of that authority from pastors and principals to other sources. Mary’s School, providing the high-level, big-picture decisions about mission and vision and money, and often hiring a principal to implement day-to-day school management. Uhl belongs to a movement of administrators, philanthropists, diocesan leaders and education experts who are rethinking the parochial, or parish-based, model of Catholic education. “For so long, we’ve held up independence and site-based management as the hallmarks of good Catholic schools,” said Tim Uhl, who is superintendent of Montana Catholic schools and host of the podcast, newsletter and blog “Catholic School Matters.” “But what we’re seeing today is that leaving someone alone to run their school and saying, ‘All the best! Hope you can do it!’ doesn’t always show excellence or progress.” Akano’s across the United States and you are looking at one of the major challenges Catholic primary education currently faces: Running a parish school has become too much for one pastor and one principal to handle.

In a crisis, she could call the diocesan superintendent or make a “mayday” call to a nearby principal, but for the most part, “the expectation was that you would figure stuff out on your own.” ‘All the Best!’ She knew it was not an efficient way to run a school, but there was no time to think of a better system.

The era of the parochial school-at least in the form that has dominated Catholic education in recent memory-is over. She rarely visited classrooms except to tally up data points for various forms she needed to complete. Akano felt disconnected from her teachers and students. When she met with her supervisor, the parish pastor, they focused on whatever was urgent (like that bathroom) and seldom on what they cared about most: ensuring that every student at Sacred Heart was getting a character-shaping, life-changing education rooted in the Catholic faith.

There were budgets to make, payrolls to process, teacher contracts to negotiate, candy-bar fundraisers to run, and that bathroom on the first floor was not going to fix itself. “I spent a lot of time learning to do tasks that, quite frankly, I was not educated for,” she recalled.

Shortly into her first year as principal, her fears were confirmed. Akano think twice about the job it was the paperwork. The median household income was $28,042 more than 40 percent of families with kids under 18 lived in poverty. But the neighborhood-part of the poorest congressional district in the United States-was struggling. The building was beautiful: a four-story, Gothic-style schoolhouse built in 1926 with separate arched entrances for boys and girls. For 10 years she had been a teacher, then assistant principal at Sacred Heart, a pre-K through eighth grade parochial school in the Highbridge section of the Bronx. Abigail Akano was not sure she wanted to be principal.

Catholic see finance problems