Parochial school enrollment declines in Greensburg Diocese
Enrollment in parochial schools for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg has declined slightly this fall with the start of a new tuition policy. But the only Fayette County school to implement the model this year has experienced no change in enrollment. In fact, Holy Rosary School in Republic is the only one of the 10 schools adopting the new policy throughout the diocese to experience no decline, according to Angela Burrows, executive director of InfoMedia Services for the diocese.
First-day figures for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg show an 8 percent decline in enrollment for its 20 elementary parochial schools – 10 percent among the 10 schools that implemented the new tuition policy this school year and 6.5 percent among the 10 schools that will implement the new model next year.
The policy change calls for parents to take on more of the costs of educating their children. Tuition is now based on the actual cost of education but financial aid is available to parents based on need. Previously parents paid a fixed cost regardless of income.
Diocesan officials said in addition to helping parents financially, the change was made to alleviate the burden on home parishes which operated the schools.
Another goal, said officials, was increase teacher salaries, which have traditionally been lower than those for public schools. For example, starting salaries for teachers are rising from $13,000 to $18,000 in schools implementing the policy change.
The Catholic Accent, the diocesan newspaper, reported Thursday that total enrollment for grades kindergarten through eighth stood at 4,082 this year, compared with 4,433 for 2001-2002.
However, Holy Rosary School in Republic has maintained its enrollment at 147 students for both school years 2001-2002 and 2002-2003.
“We lost 19, but we gained 19,’ explained Sister Corrine Giel, principal at Holy Rosary. “It says we’re working really hard to keep it going and the option for tuition assistance is a fair way to do it. It has met the needs and made it an affordable education.’
She added, “We had three parents who chose to pay full tuition. They felt they could do it. They were blessed and felt if they could afford to pay the tuition, they were going to do it.’
Fayette County’s other four parochial schools will implement the new policy next year. Three of them experienced a decline in enrollment this year. They include Conn Area Catholic, which went from 218 students to 208; St. John the Evangelist in Uniontown, which went from 244 to 232; and St. Mary in Uniontown, which went from 177 to 167, Burrows said.
The exception is All Saints School in Masontown, which shows four fewer students this year but dropped its seventh and eighth grades. All Saints went from 111 students in grades k-8 for 2001-2002 to 107 students in grades k-6 in 2002-2003.
“We’ve gone down because of seventh and eighth grades but our enrollment in all but the third grade is very good,’ said Paul Polink, principal.
This year’s kindergarten class is 22 at All Saints – much larger than the average of 12 to 13 students. Polink also noted there are 34 students in preschool.
“With the high numbers in preschool and kindergarten, I think we’ll stay the same,’ said Polink. “But I don’t know what will happen with the new tuition model.’
Burrows said the biggest decline in enrollment for the Diocese of Greensburg occurred in Westmoreland County. Aquinas Academy, located in Greensburg, lost 19 percent of its students although the school will not implement the new policy until next year. The school went from 611 students in grades k-8 to 493.
She said Christ the Divine Teacher in Latrobe experienced a 15.4 percent loss while Queen of Angels School in North Huntingdon lost 13.5 percent of its students.
Burrows said, “We expected some decline. Some schools were harder hit. We are where we are. We had to change the model. And we’re starting from here.’
These figures were based on first-day enrollments for the schools. Burrows said they could deviate from numbers that must be reported to the state based on an Oct. 1 count. Those figures will be available later.