Salvation for St. Agnes

If you need a pick-me-up today, there's a heartwarming story in our local paper about a struggling St. Paul Catholic high school that had announced three weeks ago that it was closing, but was rescued in a rather miraculous 3 week grassroots enrollment & fundraising effort. 

In the 19 days since St. Agnes' pastor announced that the high school was in danger of closing because of shrinking enrollment and mounting debt, the school has gained 67 new students and raised $3 million. . . .   

On April 20, school officials announced that the high school had piled up $1 million in debt, largely by subsidizing a shrinking student body that could not afford to pay the full tuition of about $7,000 annually. More than 80 percent of St. Agnes high school students receive some type of financial aid. And the number of students committed to coming back in the fall did not look good.

Our Vicar-General added these thoughts about the future of urban Catholic schools:

The Rev. Kevin McDonough, vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said St. Agnes' troubles mirror those facing urban Catholic schools across the country. In 2003, St. Bernard's Catholic School -- another St. Paul parish -- faced closing its grade school until a fundraising drive raised more than $600,000.

"We have, in our urban schools, 1,147 kids this year who qualify for free or reduced lunch," he said. "Ten years ago, the number would have been 20 percent of that. A lot of families are choosing our schools because they want an education for their kids, but they can't afford the tuition."

To survive, McDonough said, urban Catholic schools must do what colleges did before them -- reach out to donors, seek endowments, envision a future less dependent on tuition. Three years ago, a group of urban pastors and principals helped form Friends of the Catholic Urban Schools (FOCUS) to work on joint fund-raising reaching income sources that might not give to an individual school. "People are trying to get upstream on poverty," he said. "There is a lot of sympathy for our story.