Keeping Costs Down

Economics difficulties are hitting most families right now. We see it in our applications for enrollment. We are receiving higher than normal amount of applications for our upper grades from families who may have their children in more expensive private schools.

One of the basic tenets of Catholic school is to provide an affordable Catholic education to families who want it. This is a philosophy I strongly subscribe to and I make it a priority. Some of the ways this has been made possible in past years is to have religious teaching in the schools, receiving subsidies from the parish and having parents do service in the school.

We no longer have religious teaching in most of our schools (none at Holy Angels) most parishes cannot subsidize their schools any more ( we receive financial support form our parish) and parent service has lost its purpose.

Parent service hours is supposed to fulfill roles that we would otherwise have to pay for. This may include aiding in the classroom, supervising at lunch and recess, completing office tasks, and much much more. Some of this still gets done by volunteers, but those numbers are becoming less and less. We have hired staff to do most of these jobs now, and every year the suggestion for many jobs previously done by parents is "Why not just pay someone to do it?". We are fortunate to be able to afford this, but ultimately, it ends up driving the tuition of the school up.
At the same time, we may have thirteen parents volunteer to run a class Christmas party, which may be more than necessary, and, ultimately, does not really serve the purpose for which school service hours are intended (keeping costs down).

We need to decide what we want our school to become. I know what I want it to remain, but it will require our parents to be involved in some roles that may not be as fun or easy as we are becoming accustomed to. Otherwise we run the risk of defeating one of our primary goals.