Global Education and Catholic Schools

While everyone agrees that helping our students become "global citizens" is crucially important, many Catholic high schools believe such a goal is beyond their means, despairing that it is only possible for wealthier, "elite" schools. And indeed, scheduling a two week tour of Europe through an agency like EF Tours is likely to cost anywhere between $3,000-4,000 per student-- too much for many of our families.

I would argue, however, taking such a tour is not the best educational way to promote global learning, and it certainly is not the cheapest way to study abroad. Rather, I believe the better educational model is to create "sister school" relationships with Catholic schools in different countries, pair students in each of these schools, and then swap visits, with each student living in the homes of their paired student.

We've been doing it this way at JPII for seven years now, beginning with St. Edmund College in Hertfordshire, Ware, England, but now including the Mauritz School in Muenster, Germany and St. Riquier in Amiens, France. The model is the same for all three schools: they send their students to the United States to live with a host student and his or her family for two weeks, usually in early August when we are in school and they are not, and we send our kids to their families in early June, when we are not in school and they are.

Part of the time, students attend the school of their host; part of the time, there are planned activities that all the students in the program are engaged in, but most of the time, the responsibility of "what to do" during those two weeks is the responsibility of the host family. When English students arrive in Nashville, TN, they will spend three days in our school and our school will take them will as a group to downtown Nashville, where they will tour museums, walk down Broad Street and listen to the country music coming out of the bars, or spend time at Centennial Park. But individual host families may take their guests to Gatlinburg to ski on one of the weekends, or travel to Memphis, or visit the caves of Kentucky, or spend a weekend on a boat on the lake--whatever the host family prefers. When we visit St. Edmund's, the school will take a day tour of London just an hour south, but individuals families may take our kids to Oxford, or to the East or West Coast of England, depending.

We do this with no more than twenty students at a time and send two of our faculty members to be our "boots on the ground" in case there are issues, especially early on. Our faculty enjoy it immensely, because so much of the responsibility is "off" them once our kids get paired with families, giving them the opportunity to do some local site seeing of their own. It's actually a nice side benefit to working at our school, and it's not hard to find volunteers.

There are many advantages to this model, chief of which is our kids and their kids see the other country from the "inside-out:" through the perspective of the host family and the paired student. This perspective is richer, fuller and more authentic than a blitzkrieg tour of all the sites typical of tour companies. Second, schools share the responsibility of the success of the program with the host families, taking a significant burden off the school and its faculty to "entertain" their guests for an extended period. Third, the relationship with the "sister" schools abroad adds cachet to our school's "brand" in our community. Fourth, students develop friendships that are meaningful and long lasting. Many of our students will go back to Europe on their own--after graduation, for example--and stay with their new "family" and "friend." They, in turn, will come to visit us.

And, to my opening point, this is a much cheaper model. The trip costs a school the cost of two faculty adults who travel with our kids--money that we include in the price structure. The only other significant cost is the round trip ticket, which could run anywhere from $1500-2000, plus a little spending money for the kids when they go sight-seeing.

I, too, have benefitted from the relationships with our sister schools. When I spent a week in England with St. Edmund, I came back and started a "House" system here, so impressed was I by the quality of pastoral care these provided. They've been doing "Houses," after all, for centuries! Our kids love the new House system.

It's not hard to set these up. Many European students are looking for an opportunity to visit America, and this model is cheaper from their end as well. I would encourage you to ask your language teachers to begin making inquiries of other Catholic schools abroad in the desired locations. Finding such "sister schools" adds great value to our school programs and what we can offer our students.

I recommend these kind of exchange programs highly.

Ten Suggestions for School Web Pages

There's simply nothing more important to our schools' marketing plans than a really good web page. Back in the early 1990's, I learned a little bit about HTML so I could create a web page for our school; these days, however, that's no longer necessary, as there are many services "out there" who will help us create beautiful pages and maintain them with no coding experience required. 

Even so, I believe good school web pages have the following characteristics: 

First, they are highly visual, with the image(s) or video comprising 50-70% of the page.  Too much text virtually guarantees that people won't spend much time on our site--there's simply too many more interesting things out there. For what I consider some excellent visual school sites,  go to http://www.am-hs.org/, or http://groton.org/, or http://www.saa-sds.org/. Large pictures tell a compelling story--make sure the diversity and balance of your pictures tells the right story, without an disproportionate share of athletic pictures, for example.  

Second, school web pages should feature an up-to-date, all purpose calendar, including all school and athletic events. This is the "driver" of traffic onto your site--parents need information about upcoming games, theater events, parent-teacher nights. Schools must make this available to them in an easy to find, easy to read format. 

Third, school pages should highlight contact information for teachers and administrators. Schools should invite parents to contact their teachers via email--it's the most efficient means of information swapping--and cuts down on interruptions. But for too many web pages, it's a game of hide and seek to find that information. It shouldn't be. 

Fourth, I believe our web pages should contain "good news" stories about the school, via links on the front page ( see http://ideasincatholiceducation.blogspot.com/2013/10/marketing-on-shoestring.html ).  The theory here is much like the design of a grocery store: When people come to the grocery store for a single item, they're usually on the hunt for something like milk or eggs. That's why the milk is usually in the back of the store--to get there, the shopper must "collide" with all sorts of sales displays which will hopefully entice him to buy more stuff. People don't come onto our web page to read our news stories, but to check dates and times. When they do, we want them to "collide" with good news about the school, so they can share this news with others. 

Fifth, web pages should contain a gallery with lots of pictures and movie clips--homecoming events, football games, the latest pep rally or 8th grade visit. Perhaps it's a sign of our own vanity, but we love to look at ourselves and our children on line! If a school wants to drive traffic to its site, it needs to take a lot of pictures and post a lot of videos. These need not be of the professional variety! It's almost more authentic when it's unprofessional--what we can generate with iphones and post on google galleries or youtube pages is usually good enough.  I'd also warehouse your school's newsletters on line--you can give the good news stories within a longer shelf life. 

Sixth, school pages should have a place where all routine forms--permission slips, driver's license certification forms, physicals, etc are housed. We shouldn't be chasing paper anymore, or using fax machines to shuffle forms back and forth. Fax machines are a 1990's technology! 

Seventh, our pages should link to all social media sites the school maintains. These sites should be, at minimum, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. The object is to have all of these platforms criss-crossing the other, driving traffic in multiple directions so as to tell the school's story. 

Eighth, our school web pages should provide somewhere, a "Quick Facts" section or something like it where all the school's statistics can be located. This is both for the type-A parent who is comparison shopping schools, but it's also for reasons of institutional control. Educational statistics can be manipulated and misunderstood, so I prefer to be the person who puts these statistics together, and I refer all people who write stories or grants for us to use the statistics on this page. For an example of such a page, here's what we do: http://jp2hs.org/about/quick-facts/

Ninth, our pages should include employment opportunities. If we have openings, we can wax on eloquently about the positions we have open and the advantages of teaching in our school, so that when we post openings in parish bulletins, or in diocesan weeklies, or on national web sites, we need only post the link to the opening. In addition, I believe the task to find good teachers is an on-going one, so I encourage interested prospects to apply, even if we don't have a current position open! The bigger the pool of resumes we receive, the better our chances of finding a truly superb teacher. 

Tenth I believe our web sites should give what I call "consumer" information to prospective and current families. This includes all tuition and fee costs, a copy of our student handbook of all school policies, (it saves money to simply publish these on line), a "curricular guide" that explains our academic program, and information about extra-curricular events. Keeping all this available on line helps our families find the information they need--and cuts down on the volume of phone calls to our receptionist! Do her a favor! 

I am  not suggesting our web site is perfect, but we've tried to put all these suggestions together here. 

One final piece. Do you want to save money? Prices vary wildly between school web design vendors--depending on whether you want to use a company's existing templates or design your own page, which could cost as much as (literally) fifty thousand dollars.  The best value I can find out there for Catholic schools is from the guys at http://www.ecatholicwebsites.com/, a company that works with Catholic schools and churches. They will allow you to use their existing templates for a $100 set up fee and a $20/month maintenance fee (these are insanely low prices). Or, they'll help you design your own site for $2500   The last time we designed our school web site, it cost us $25,000, and the time before that, it cost $15,000!  

I've looked over institutions that have used their services, and they're quite attractive, such as here (http://www.usordinariate.org/) or here: http://www.dioceseofnashville.com/ or a Catholic school here: http://www.hccsf.org/ or here: http://www.pj23.org/. I recommend these guys highly. 

Spend time on your web page before you spend any other monies for advertising. Everything else we might to advertise for our school pales in importance. 

Marketing on a Shoestring

Most of us in Catholic schools don't market our schools very well, mostly because we see it as a luxury we can't afford. In fact, newspaper ads, slick admissions brochures, billboards and radio spots are very expensive, and given what we pay our teachers, it's not an unreasonable position to be hesitant to spend money on what may or may not "pay off" in the long run. But that makes us uneasy, because we know that enrollment is the life blood of our school's long term health.

The best marketing, however, doesn't cost us anything.

I believe the best marketing for our school is "inside-out" marketing--that is, equip our parents and teachers with "good news" stories about our school, and then let these "insiders" share those stories with others. If you think about it, "word of mouth" is the way that parents choose schools for their children anyway--they don't do it by the quality of an admissions brochure. 

So what are our parents saying?

Parents are proud of us, and they want to feel good about their choice and sacrifice to send their children to our school. Teachers are proud to work with us. They both want to hear good news stories, and they're eager to share this news with others.

The key question is this: how do we equip our "insiders" with these stories?

I believe that it's incumbent on us as school leaders to generate 2-3 "good news" stories every week about our students or teachers, and we must be creative in doing so. It isn't just what Mrs. Johnson did in second grade this week, although it could be. It might be about a student who just became an Eagle scout. It may be an interesting service project our kids are involved in. It might be a quick "catching up" with a recent graduate who is now in high school or college. It might be a quick interview with a teacher who is celebrating his or her 10th, 15th or 20th year in our schools. It could be an interview with four sixth graders who tell us what they like about our school. Perhaps it's a quick interview with a new parent, about why they chose our school for his or her child.

These stories need not be the long "feature length" quality--in fact, shorter is usually better. But they should include a picture that resonates with the reader, and they should reflect on the mission of our school and all the diverse, wonderful things our students, faculty and parents do.

Don't have the time to write these stories? Perhaps that's something we can ask a volunteer to do for us once/week.

Once we have these 2-3 stories, we should share them with everyone. They should be posted on our school's facebook page and as links for our "Twitter" feeds.  They should be placed as links on the front page of our web site (if they're on page 2 of our website, no one is reading them--see how we do this here: www.jp2hs.org). They should be sent out as links in the school's weekly email to all of our constituents. They should be mailed to the diocesan and local papers (What they publish we can't control, but if they need content, we're giving it to them. With the razor thin margins papers are operating with, we've found about 1/2 of what we send to them is published, often word for word with what we've written.)

In this world of "rubber-necking" to see the latest accident or tragedy, we must be very disciplined and persistent in countering with positive stories about our school and students. The word "gospel", after all, means "good news."

Let's share the gospel unabashedly! 

Improving our Math Scores

Catholic elementary schools tend to produce students with much stronger scores in language arts than mathematics. This is generally true in dioceses across the United States.

I have a theory why: More so than public schools--with their detailed curricular specifications, a governing bureaucracy that supervises this curriculum and public testing that measures its progress-- Catholic schools are heavily dependent on the interests and talents of our individual teachers to create and deliver the curriculum. This independence, of course, is generally a source of strength for our schools, empowering our faculties with a sense of ownership that encourages a culture of creativity and innovation. 

But in the area of Math, this independence may be problematic. Most elementary teachers have more affinity for language arts than mathematics, and like any of us, we tend to place our energies into what we are good at doing. That doesn’t mean our teachers don’t “cover” what the curriculum requires. It does mean their passion and creativity lean more toward languages than math. And it probably means that the 9- year effect of this “lean” will result in math skills that lag in comparison. 

Short of adopting the public school model, I am pessimistic that new programs or other curricular interventions in our Catholic schools will yield substantially better math results. The issue isn’t one of technique, design, or time on task. Rather, it resides in the natural proclivities of our teachers. 

Sumner Academy, a small but highly regarded K-8 private school in Gallatin, TN (http://www.sumneracademy.org) has a simple solution: It departmentalizes disciplines all the way down to kindergarten. Each “unit” (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) has a math/science teacher, a language arts teacher and a third teacher. Kids stay in one classroom, but the teachers rotate to that classroom. 

Organizing this way allows the school to hire teachers with a genuine love and depth of understanding for math (and science) for each grade level unit, without adding any additional salary costs to the school.  The headmaster of Sumner Academy, Dr. Bill Hovenden, points out additional benefits:

• There’s better vertical alignment of the K-8 curriculum since it’s a matter of coordinating just three people in each discipline.

• Since a particular teacher teaches each kid for three years in their particular discipline, he or she begins the year knowing much more about his or her students’ strengths and weaknesses.

• When a teacher is on maternity leave or out for an extended illness, the other two teachers in each unit can guide and support the substitute as the third member of the team.

Most of the graduates from Sumner Academy attend our high school, so I see their test scores. The math scores are high. The model works. 

Because departmentalization at such a young age violates elementary school orthodoxy, I asked Dr. Hovenden if his kids seemed to have difficulty in adjusting to three teachers instead of one. He answers “no” rather emphatically. In fact, he argues that the trio of teachers can often provide more pastoral, loving support for a child than a single teacher because the teachers can talk as a team about each student, tackle issues together, and build longer term relationships with each student’s family. Students, families and teachers become very close to one another over the course of those three years. 

That's not speculation, he adds. They’ve been doing it this way for over twenty years.

Creative Scheduling to Save Significant Monies

Because we are extra sensitive to the needs of our parents, Catholic schools often operate on a razor thin margin that makes budgeting difficult. One way we can save significant monies that we often don't think about during the budgeting process is how we go about scheduling the academic day and how we schedule our teachers as part of the day. Here are a few ideas to consider:

1) In my previous school of roughly 300 students in grades 9-12, we had a 7 period day, with teachers required to teach five of those seven periods, or 71% of the school day. Classes met in roughly 50 minute blocks. There were a number of problems: First, carrying seven classes at a time was difficult for our students, especially in terms of homework loads. Second, the 50 minute classes were too short to advance the kind of curriculum we wanted, with labs in science classes, for example, or significant discussions and constructivist learning in other classes. Third, it was expensive to give teachers two free periods, but asking them to teach an additional class would take away their planning time and almost certainly guarantee an extra prep. I believed it would over-tax them. 

We looked at a variety of models, including the "block schedule" where students carry just four classes each semester, 90 minutes/class,  and cover a full year in a single semester. After much discussion and research, I became convinced the last fifteen minutes of the "block" were often wasted in too many classes, making it impossible to "cover" the yearly curriculum in a semester's time. We needed something in between the 50 and 90 minute periods. 

So in the mid 1990's, we implemented a "trimester" schedule. Students took five classes of 72 minutes each and earned a half-credit in of those classes per trimester. For a student to earn a full credit, then, they had to take two trimesters of a class. Teachers taught four of five classes (80% of the school day), which turned out to be a manageable load, especially since they were teaching fewer students each trimester (4 classes times 20'ish students=80 vs. five classes of 20'ish=100). Students and parents liked it because their daily load was lessened considerably, making homework more manageable. Furthermore, students could earn an extra half credit each year (3 trimesters of 5 classes =7.5 credits, vs. 7 credits in the old model). And, to the point of this article, it saved us significant monies. Why? Because teachers were teaching 9% more of the day, which translated, on a faculty of 22 teachers, to two full-time teachers--anywhere from $70-90,000 once all the benefits were added in. No small amount!

Let me anticipate an objection: We ran the trimester for ten years and tracked test scores closely. There was no drop off in academic achievement with our kids. In fact, the trimester system gave us some flexibility that added to our academic success, such as the ability to schedule a remedial second trimester class for students who did poorly in Composition I in the first trimester (a class we considered pivotal for future success), or adding a third trimester requirement for Advanced Placement classes in Physics, Chemistry or Calculus that required students to dig much deeper. 

2) Most elementary schools offer after school care programs, and increasingly, our parents expect there to be some curricular element to them, where students are offered exploratory classes in art, or music, or foreign language, for example. It's expensive to hire qualified teachers who are available in those time slots! At the same time, we invest a lot of monies into having art, music and foreign language teachers in our school programs, and when budgets get tight, we often cut those programs and move those teachers to part time. 

But there's another option:  Why not ask our art, music and foreign language teacher to begin their day around 10 a.m. and end their day at 5'ish, with the expectation they will teach in our after school programs? Yes, that cuts two hours of time from their ability to teach students in the school each day, but the reality is there are no requirements that dictate how often we must offer these enrichment classes each week. And though our "special" teachers would likely prefer an 8-3 job along with everyone else, most would opt for a full time gig, even if 10-5. 

3) I believe most Catholic schools, and especially Catholic elementary schools, are woefully understaffed at the administrative level. We expect our principals to run our day care programs in addition to our K-8 programs, often with only a beleaguered secretary and guidance counselor as part of the administrative "team." They must respond to every question, answer every appeal, serve as the "referee" for every dispute. Corporate America recommends that managers be responsible for 8-10 "direct reports," employees who directly report to them. Our principals are typically responsible for 15-30 direct reports, not counting their myriad other responsibilities. Many of our schools need, at minimum, an assistant principal, but cannot afford one. 

Some schools have responded by creating a layer of administration from within their teaching ranks, configuring their schools in K-2, 3-5 and 6-8 "units" and designating a "lead teacher" in charge of each unit. They then stipend the lead teacher a certain amount of money to recognize the work they do (the amount varies--a school I know stipends them $2,000) and if possible, gives them an extra free period as relief from their teaching load. 

The key is how the principals use these lead teachers. Smart principals will insist the lead teachers are responsible for all curricular planning. I would suggest they also ask the lead teachers to "vet" all teacher candidates for openings within their unit, making a recommendation to the principal after doing the initial interviews. I would suggest considering the lead teachers as part of the "administrative team" that leads the school and meeting with them once/week to talk about issues.  I would insist that if parents have issues with a particular grade, they first address the teacher, then the lead teacher, and only then, the principal. 

If we use lead teachers in this way, we can take a real load off principals, even while giving our best and brightest teachers the chance to advance in their careers, possibly even as an interim step toward becoming assistant principals or principals down the road. And let's compare costs: three lead teachers with stipends of 2,000 each year plus one less class each day might cost the school $10k or $12k, vs. $40k, $45k or $50k for an assistant principal once the full time benefits are included. 

Ramping Up Our Message

One of the mistakes we often make in Catholic schools is we don’t speak powerfully enough or evocatively enough of our mission. 

Our problems begin with our mission statements themselves, which too frequently go through the laundry list of “mind, body, soul” in some form or another. My school at John Paul II is fairly typical: 

Inspired by faith, Pope John Paul II High School prepares students to be strong in mind, body, character, and spirit for lives of learning and service, according to the Gospel. 

We get it, right? Our mission is aimed at the whole child. But that mantra is so tired, so old, so predictable, it’s forgettable and uninspiring.  

But it’s worse than that. If our mission statements were merely forgettable, they’d be harmless. But too often, they become the parameters within which we describe ourselves to each other, to our own families, and to prospective families.  As such, they have a deadening effect on what we should be proclaiming: the magnificent work God is doing in the lives of our students.  

In contrast, watch this brief clip from St. Rose of Lima, in Denver, Colorado:

 

Who do you say that we are? “We are Christ to the world!” says an 8^th grade girl, with unblinking conviction.  “We are going to college! We are getting to heaven!” say two first graders.  Even the least sentimental among us is likely moved by the powerful simplicity of those statements.

Or how about this way of talking about our mission? 

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity). 

What is our purpose as Catholic schools? To build palaces—cathedrals, even—where God can reside in the life of our students!

Or how about this magnificent way of presenting our mission to our students, from the mouth of soon to be Saint John Paul II? 

(Young people), it is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal. (World Youth Day, Rome, 2000) 

Pope Benedict said something similar to youth recently: 

The world promises you comfort. But you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness! 

This is the language we should be using to tell people about our schools!  When we immerse our students in a culture of optimism and high expectations, when they're supported by teachers and parents who care about them and pick them up when they stumble, when they belong to a team, activity or club that they are passionate about with peers who share that passion, and when they are invited to grow in their faith through prayer, worship and service, they truly flourish, becoming young men and women who are confident, happy and future oriented.  

Let us be bold! Our schools need to embrace the evangelical challenge of the gospel and talk about this challenge openly with our students and prospective families.  Young people are living in a dreary world of low expectations and accommodation. Deep down, beneath the veneer of apathy, they want more.  They want to become "new creations," and to be "transformed, by the renewal of (their) minds."  They want to make a difference in other people's lives--like all of us, they want their lives to matter! If we speak openly and optimistically of this gospel challenge with them, if we build a culture of high expectations, prayer and support to live this challenge out, our schools can free young people of the gravitational forces that inhibit them from becoming the magnificent persons God created them to be! Our schools change kids' lives!

Let us find stories that witness to this transformation in the lives of our individual students and retell these stories over and over.

If we start thinking and talking about ourselves in this way, parents will be beating down our doors to send their children to us.

A New Perspective on Pricing our Schools

To raise revenue, raise prices.

That may seem idiotically tautological, but it merits emphasis because we in Catholic schools often discount things that our families go right out and pay a higher price for elsewhere. To begin with, our tuition is generally is too low. Consider the following:

• In 2012, NAIS independent schools charged an average of $18,212 tuition for elementary schools and $22,700 for secondary day schools (nais.org).

• The average per pupil costs in 2012 for public education, across all grades, is $10,652 (ncea.org)

• In that same year, Catholic schools charged an average of $3,673 tuition for elementary schools and $9,622 for  secondary schools (ncea.org).

For sure, we are fortunate to receive stipends from the parish and diocese to add to these tuition amounts, but the net revenue per child in our schools is still dramatically lower than our private school competitors and still much less than what public schools receive through taxes.

I am not advocating that we try to mimic private school costs! But how can we compete if they are charging, as a national average, five times what our elementary schools are charging and twice what our secondary schools are charging?  I don't think we can compete-- not, at least, over the long haul. We must narrow the gap. 

Furthermore, from a marketing perspective, we no longer benefit from being the lowest tuitions in town—people associate cost with quality. What would we think about our doctor's credentials if we found out he was charging one-fifth what the other doctors around town charged? If we position ourselves in the market as the "K-Mart" of educational options, we're wasting whatever money we're spending on marketing to improve our public image. I think we’re going to have to adopt more of a college model, raising our prices rather aggressively but also funding our financial aid programs equally aggressively, and take away the stigma in applying for financial aid the same way that the colleges have done. Over 80% of those in college now receive some form of financial aid.

Look at second and third child discount rates. Many of us give half-tuition and two-thirds tuition off. Too much! If a large Catholic family struggles to pay tuitions, better to encourage them to apply for financial aid than to give an automatic tuition discount to the families who can afford to pay more. In my previous K-12 Catholic school, we gave a $1,000 discount for each additional child; in my current school, $500.

Also, look at fee structures. Many Catholic schools treat their registration fees as down payments for next year’s tuition or deposits that will be refunded upon graduation. I would advocate that you lower the registration or deposit, but make it an annual fee that is added revenue. Most of our private school competitors do it this way.

Also consider raising prices for concession drinks, textbooks, gates to athletic games, cafeteria costs, the cost of school decals and spirit-wear to mirror market rates elsewhere. Our families don’t have to buy these things from us.


If all of this makes you feel a little queasy, it shouldn't. We're not raising prices to increase profits or pad our pockets! Every extra dollar we make should go to paying our woefully underpaid teachers and staff. We must, in the words of Scripture, "be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves." Or, in the words of business, "where there is no margin, there is no mission."