Paradigms

Let's be direct: The K-8, 9-12 paradigm for Catholic schools has served us well for over a century. But it's not serving us well now, nor do I think it will sustain us for the next hundred years. 

First, let's acknowledge the fact we no longer have K-8 schools. We have preK4-8 schools, and even preK3-8 schools. Why does that matter? Because by the time our kids have finished sixth grade, they've been in our schools as long as our 8th graders of yesteryear, making them itchier to leave us in the middle school grades. And it means we've saddled elementary school principals with an even more demanding job, now having to minister to an eleven year span of students (and their parents) instead of the nine-year span. Parents in our preK-8 schools grow less fond of us as their children age, partly a result of their children's crankiness. The universal complaint of 8th graders in our preK-8 schools? "They treat us like children."

Worse, the competition for our students has grown exponentially. It isn't just us, public schools and elite privates any more. There are magnet schools, charter schools and a whole host of K-12 evangelical schools that are attractive to our families. Most private schools are 7-12 or even K-12, which highlights the disadvantage of our divided K-8/9-12 model: they're able to leverage their high school athletic facilities, coaching staffs, science labs and libraries to their younger families. They recruit them using beautiful brochures and clever outreach programs typical of the high school market. They leverage their high school leadership teams for planning and execution of their campus programs. Our stand alone K-8's are hard-pressed to compete with all that. 

Yes, a lot has happened to us which we can't control. The sisters, in large measure, are no longer with us. Many of our schools were built in once thriving areas of town, but demographics have changed. Many families today care less about Catholic formation for their children. The results? We're educating about 60% less Catholic school children today than we did in 1960. We've closed about 7,000 Catholic schools. 

We can't cry over spilled milk, and it's fruitless to wish or hope that demographics will improve. But what we can control and improve, we should! I believe we should re-think our paradigm. I propose two possibilities, but encourage us to develop an entrepreneurial spirit for other ideas:

Possibility #1: Create regional middle schools in our diocese. Depending on where the public schools transition to junior highs or middle schools in your area, these could be 7-8, 6-8 or 5-8 schools. Let the parish elementary schools become preK3-5 or prek3-6 accordingly. The middle school, ideally, would be located on the high school campus so as to leverage facilities and outreach programs, but the middle school program should be a separated from the high school  and distinctive from it, catering to the needs of young adolescents. 

Possibility #2: Start building K-12 campuses, with three distinctive "levels" (elementary, middle school and high school), for all the reasons discussed above. 

We built a middle school in my previous school in Montgomery, AL. Before doing so, there were two schools, a stand-alone K-8 school of about 400 students, and about six miles away, a 9-12 high school of about 250 students. In 2004, we opened a middle school with a capacity of 200 students for grades 7-8, placed it on the high school campus,  and re-configured the elementary school into a prek-6 school of 300. We combined boards and financial offices, so that the elementary school wasn't simply "out" the 100 students and expected to take the hit for that financially. We hired a middle school principal and directed her to set up a unique program. We established a middle school athletic program under the leadership of the high school. I was named president of this "new" K-12 school with two campuses.

Here's what happened:  Kids and their parents were thrilled with the middle school, and it filled to its capacity of 100/grade quickly, thus adding 50 new students into our program compared with our 6th grade totals,  as public school families looked for alternatives to the public junior highs. Because 100 students were now coming out the middle school each year, the high school went from 250 to nearly 400 students. But here's the really exciting part: Parents at our preK-6 elementary school were much happier: there was less shrapnel coming from disgruntled older children, parents of younger kids felt better served, and the elementary school grew quickly in size. Also, the only guaranteed way into the middle school was to be enrolled in 6th grade at the elementary, so we ended up with waiting lists in fifth and sixth grade. In my last act as president before I left in June of 2008, despite the fact the middle school had emptied the elementary school of four classrooms when it opened,  I had to order a trailer to meet elementary classroom demands! We went from K-12 total enrollment of 650 to an enrollment of 880 in just four years, growth of just over 35%. 

I believe this can be replicated in other dioceses, but we have to have the courage to move beyond the paradigm we're in now.