DuPage Catholic schools may be better able to cope together
As the recession hits the pocketbooks of parents and parishioners, two DuPage County Catholic grade schools will merge next fall to avoid shutting down, while another will downsize to become an early learning academy.
St. Charles Borromeo in Bensenville and St. Joseph in Addison, each with about 120 students, will combine to form Holy Family Catholic School for the 2009-10 academic year.
In Lombard, Christ the King school will no longer serve its approximately 120 students in kindergarten through eighth grade and, next fall, will transform into an early learning center for ages 3 to 5.
All three schools cite falling enrollment and the economy as the culprit behind the changes. The Diocese of Joliet requires an average minimum of 22 students per class in grade schools, with a maximum of about 40, school officials said.
Some parents and officials with the new Holy Family say combining schools is a creative way to continue providing Catholic education in the harsh economy.
"I think everyone was shocked that we were talking about it, but I think everybody understands," said Don Quick, an Addison parent of two students at St. Joseph. "When we saw what they were doing, most families were positive because they'd rather see us consolidate than close."
The grade school changes come at the same time students, parents and alumni of Driscoll Catholic High School in Addison are working to raise about $1 million by today to keep the school from closing due to falling enrollment and revenue. In the past five years, Driscoll has seen enrollment decline from 465 to 311 students.
But officials at St. Charles and the Diocese of Joliet said the similarities between the grade and high schools end there.
"I don't know if (Driscoll) would have this type of merger opportunity available," said the Rev. John Klein, St. Charles Borromeo pastor. "In a high school, you don't have the subsidy of a connected church. And there are simply not as many Catholic high schools, and the distance between them is farther. Our schools are a seven-minute drive apart."
Because both St. Charles and St. Joseph are physically connected to a church - and the property could not easily be sold - each school building will remain open once Holy Family is created. St. Joseph will become a west campus for preschool through fourth grade and St. Charles will be an east campus for grades five through eight.
To save money on human resources, about half of the staff will be cut at both schools in the merger. Classes will almost double from about 10 to 15 students to 22 to 30, Klein said.
"There is certainly sadness with the staff cuts, but there are not a lot of choices," Klein said. "The reality is human resource cost is where we are getting our biggest savings. If we let the situation go where we had to close both schools, we would lose all the teachers."
Students from Christ the King ideally will be absorbed into the Lombard-based Sacred Heart and St. Pius X schools, said Doug Delaney, assistant to Joliet Diocese Bishop J. Peter Sartain.
"The hope is that this full-time early learning academy will be a feeder system for the other schools, eventually," Delaney said.
He says social trends, such as decreasing family sizes, are contributing to the reduced enrollment at all four schools. But all agree the recession has dealt the biggest blow. Last month, Driscoll's President Tom Geraghty said many parents are getting laid off and are unable to pay the high school's yearly tuition of about $7,000 per student.
But Delaney said Catholic schools aren't the only ones struggling.
"The public schools are in financial dire straits too," he said. "Lots of programs are being cut and the state is broke, so I think the Catholic school system a reflection of society in general. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have jobs right now and it's sort of a snowball effect all the way across."