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Reorganization of Quincy Catholic schools may be in future

Sunday, April 4, 2004

By Phil Weber

Herald-Whig Staff Writer

Quincy's seven Catholic elementary schools may reorganize in the near future, a move that could reduce the number of schools, bring tuition costs closer together and balance enrollment between the remaining schools.

The Quincy Catholic Schools Study Committee was commissioned last year by the seven schools and Quincy Notre Dame High School to look at ways to better serve students and more efficiently utilize money.

Each parish pastor and school principal is on the committee, as are four members of each parish.

St. Marys School has religous symbols in the class room and outside. All of the classrooms have statues and pictures and a prayer corner. This statue watches over the kids in Trudy Dreier's 3rd grade class as they study.

"We're looking to see if there are alternative ways we can do things together to lighten the financial load and improve the programs," said Committee Chairman Rev. Robert Jallas, the All Saints pastor and head of the Quincy Deanery.

One of the most likely possibilities being considered is clustering — consolidating and closing at least one school — so that two or more parishes can be served by one school. This could save money by eliminating some positions and building expenses, while boosting tuition revenue at the remaining schools as the students are shifted to new attendance centers.

A committee report shows that, on average, Quincy Catholic churches spend about 86 percent of their weekly collections to support the schools, leaving very little left to cover other church expenses such as building upkeep or hiring youth ministers, homebound ministers or supporting programs for converting adults.

"So much goes into our schools that there is very little left for other programs," Jallas said.

According to the Springfield Diocesan office, schools should receive only 40 percent of their funding from church collections. Schools should get another 40 percent through tuition payments and 20 percent from donations and fund-raising.

Many of the school funding problems come from declining enrollment. The seven schools have lost almost 240 students since 1997.

Monsignor Mike Kuse, the pastor of St. Mary parish, said the committee is still looking at options, but something must be done within a few years before enrollment drops too far.

For example, All Saints has 134 students in grades K-8 this year, a far cry from the 487 students the school housed in the early 1960s.

"We've seen a decreased enrollment and an increase in expenses. It demands some kind of response," Kuse said. "We have lost students which would be the equivalent of losing one of our schools."

Ray Heilmann, principal at Quincy Notre Dame High School, is on the committee even though his school would not be part of any cluster. He said he is "very comfortable" with the direction the committee is taking and is not worried that a plan could cause further enrollment drops.

"It's a situation where all of our populations are down, public and private schools alike," he said. "The people of Quincy are very supportive of Catholic education, both at the primary and secondary level."

Although declining school enrollment has hit area public schools as well, Jallas said it struck especially hard with private schools as the economy made it more difficult for families to afford tuition.

Also, without continuing the tradition of families sending their children to Catholic schools today, Jallas said it is unlikely that they will send their younger children to the schools in the future.

The differences in tuition rates between the seven schools has been the subject of concern among Catholic school officials since at least the early 1990s and would likely be addressed in any reorganization plan. Tuitions range from $500 per family at St. Peter to $1,700 for the first student at St. Anthony.

The Rev. Roy Bauer, pastor at St. Peter, declined to comment, other than to say that he is retiring at the end of June and his replacement, Rev. Daniel J. Bergbower, is free to make whatever changes are deemed necessary.

In the late 1990s, a Quincy Catholic school congress was formed to discuss tuition, curriculums, fund-raising and promoting Catholic education. A former member of this group said the differences in tuition and parish boundaries was enough of a divisive issue that the group disbanded after only a handful of unproductive meetings.

Bauer's retirement and Jallas' upcoming reassignment to Springfield mean that the parishes will be forced to make adjustments for the next several months, so the committee decided now would be a good time to make their recommendations public.

It is unlikely that the schools will reorganize before the fall semester. Instead, Kuse said it will likely be "a very gradual process" that could stretch over the next several years. In any event, the schools will maintain their connections to the parish churches.

The next step will come when the committee sends out an interest survey to all of the city's Catholics — including those who do not have children in the private schools — to get their opinions. The survey will be mailed out by mid-summer.

The committee hopes to have a final proposal to present to Bishop George Lucas in December. Ultimately, it is up to him to approve or reject the plan, but Jallas said the bishop is likely to go along with any plan that has popular support among the Quincy schools.

"The idea isn't just to close schools. The idea is to see how we can do things better," Jallas said.