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CURRENT ISSUE: September 17, 2007 • VOL. 45, NO. 16 • Oakland, CA
Diocese unveils urban school plan
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Students at St. Jarlath School in Oakland enjoy the school’s playground during the first week of September. The school is one of eight invited to join a new diocesan schools’ consortium. GREG TARCZYNSKI PHOTO |
Consortium will focus on
finances,
marketing and curriculum help
Hoping to prevent more Catholic school closures and the giving over of
classroom space to charter schools, the Oakland Diocese’s new school
superintendent has unveiled a plan to help struggling schools remain open
and flourish both academically and financially. The plan is based on a
successful consortium model used for the past 10 years in Washington.
D.C.
Rick Kruska, who succeeded former superintendent Mark De Marco in July,
said the new Oakland Catholic Schools Consortium will function as a “one
stop” administrative umbrella to take the pressure off principals
so that they can concentrate on academic performance. Consortium staff
will manage finances and facilities, development and marketing, curriculum
standardization, purchasing consolidation, and personnel.
“This arrangement will allow teachers and principals to focus on
student education and development,” Kruska said, emphasizing that
it will “create ways for people and schools to grow and shine so
they will be here 200 years from now.”
Other joint efforts have
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The consortium will cost $200,000 per year to operate
and will be financed through national and local foundation grants as well
as fund raisers, said Kruska
Eight schools have been invited to participate in the voluntary program.
Another two have expressed interest. The present invitees are: Our Lady
of the Rosary in Union City, St. Barnabas in Alameda, St. Cornelius in
Richmond, and St. Anthony, St. Elizabeth, St. Jarlath and St. Martin de
Porres, all in Oakland.
Gerald and Marilyn Marchi, recently retired principals at St. Felicitas
School in San Leandro and St. Philip Neri School in Alameda respectively,
designed the consortium’s organizational model.
Linda Remington, school board president, said the board hired the Marchis
for July through September 2007 to prepare the groundwork and to reach
out to financially stressed schools that have received diocesan subsidies
for the past several years. Besides the subsidy piece, she said that other
criteria for consortium membership take into account those parishes which
are struggling financially while simultaneously trying to support their
parochial schools.
The new plan began taking shape in August 2006 when DeMarco and the board
created a task force to evaluate opportunities for improving schools,
Remington explained. In November, the task force met with Bishop Allen
Vigneron to explore what possible approaches might look like.
This February, after detailed research and numerous consultation telephone
calls to directors of successful Catholic consortium models in Indianapolis
and Washington, D.C., the task force recommended a diocesan consortium
modeled after the D.C. program. Last May, the diocesan priest consulters
approved the plan.
Superintendent Kruska hopes to hire the consortium’s executive director
by October. Three additional directors in charge of finances, development,
and academics will be in place by January 2008, he said. Their first joint
assignment will be to increase enrollment for the 2008-2009 school year.
Consortium personnel will assume the time-consuming responsibilities that
distract principals and teachers from focusing on academic excellence,
professional development, student achievement and faith formation, Kruska
said.
The finance director will be in charge of budgeting, accounting, tuition
collection, accounts payable, payroll, and capital planning for participating
schools. The purchase of supplies and educational materials and the management
of janitorial services and school maintenance will also be handled by
the finance director.
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First grade teacher Shannon Jordan reviews flash cards with C.J. Crowell Jr., 6, and Andre Trong, 6, at St. Jarlath School in Oakland. GREG TARCZYNSKI PHOTO |
The participating schools will share resources and curriculum programs, such as the Bay Area Math Project, and programs to strengthen Catholic identity, including religion curriculum, liturgical worship, moral development, service learning and social justice.
Kruska said enriched academics are the key to success. When a school’s curriculum improves, parents notice and are more inclined to send their children to that school. More tuition-paying students create more financial stability which, in turn, takes some of the stress off pastors and parishes struggling with whether they can afford to keep their schools.
“This is a change in perspective,” said Kruska, who argues against the prevailing wisdom that money alone is the answer to growing good schools. Instead, he said, the core of the matter is providing equal academic excellence on every Catholic campus within the diocese.
Most of the consortium staff probably will not be housed in the school department’s central offices, but rather at some of the participating schools. This will create visibility and accessibility by “walking the hallways,” relating to the teachers and children, Kruska said.
He is asking schools for a three to five year commitment to give them the opportunity to “flourish and shine academically.”
Such success has already happened in Washington, D.C. with the Archdiocesan Center City Consortium, created in 1997, according to its web site. Fourteen Catholic schools began using common math and reading curriculum and following learning standards that had worked well in Indianapolis Catholic schools.
Ten years later, the consortium has seen a large improvement in student achievement and faculty support. Average reading scores rose more than 50 percent from 2000-2005, and math scores rose 78 percent.
Teacher turnover dropped from 50 percent in 2000 to 10 percent in 2005. The consortium serves approximately 2,400 students through eighth grade, nearly a third of whom receive federally funded tuition vouchers.
Gerry Marchi said that enrollment overall has increased in the D.C. consortium, but he did not have exact figures.
Marchi and Kruska are encouraging the invited schools to commit to the consortium by Oct. 1. But less than a month out from the deadline, principals and pastors still had questions and had not yet signed on.
They gave voice to their concerns during an informational meeting held Aug. 30 at St. Jarlath School.
Sister Barbara Dawson, president of St. Martin De Porres School, was worried that schools will lose their individual identities. “Will the unique character of each school be preserved?” she asked. Sister Dawson, a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart, wanted to know how the division of finances would work. If her school has a fund raiser, does the money stay there? And what happens to the money that comes in from a large consortium fundraiser?
Kruska assured the nun that each school would be encouraged to retain its own particular character — which is part of the “identity product” which can attract new families. Money from individual fund raisers will stay at the school while the money from a consortium fundraiser, such as a golf tournament, would go into the general fund.
Mission San Jose Dominican Sister Rose Marie Hennessy, principal of St. Elizabeth School, said her school’s strongest outreach is to students with special needs and services. Would the school’s development director be able to stay focused upon raising money for these services? Kruska said “yes.” The consortium’s development person will not interfere with individual school’s fundraising projects, he said.
Holy Names Sister Barbara Bray, assistant superintendent, said the consortium will save schools money in the long run. For example when purchasing computers, she said, “Vendors won’t even talk to one school because vendors prefer to work with groups of eight to ten. So signing on to the consortium could save schools thousands of dollars.”
Savings could also occur when tapping into such local programs as the Bay Area Math Project and reading and writing programs for teachers. The more schools to participate, the less cost to each.
Kathy Capra, principal of St. Jarlath., said her school is already sharing in-service training sessions with St. Anthony, St. Bernard, and St. Barnabas schools. They have also held combined math days for teachers with All Saints School in Hayward.
“Sharing ideas and expenses is really a great way for schools to work together as educators to strengthen our products,” she told The Voice.
Both Sister Hennessy and Sister Dawson said they hoped the consortium would take into account the ethnic identities of families when developing recruitment strategies. Both nuns also urged more cultural diversity on the diocesan school board to match the ethnic makeup of the East Bay. The white male model no longer works, said Sister Hennessy.
At the end of the meeting, Father Jayson Landeza, pastor of St. Columba Parish, said he was cautiously optimistic about what he heard. His parish is in Deanery 13, where most of his St. Martin De Porres School students live.
“This plan could enable us to work together to address core issues of sustainability,” he said. But he expressed concern about schools’ ability to retain their autonomy and their already successful ways of marketing to new students. “Sister Barbara Dawson already has a marketing program which works,” he said. In the past four years, St. Martin de Porres has doubled its enrollment from 94 to 200.
A centralized consortium model “is probably not a bad thing, because it’s better than having everyone on their own,” Sister Dawson said. But ultimately, she observed, the question remains: “What will best serve the needs of our children?”
