Orange County Catholic schools vow to stay open

A group of Orange County Catholic educators and businessmen faced a tough decision last fall: Do they close six struggling local parish schools or take aggressive steps to keep them open?

It is a scenario confronting church leaders throughout the nation who are beset by shrinking enrollments that threaten to decimate urban parochial schools. In 2006, St. Boniface School in Anaheim closed after 50 years of operation, a victim of debt and dwindling enrollment. Several other schools merged operations to stay afloat.

But a task force assembled by Tod D. Brown, Orange County bishop, decided to hold the line. The six schools, which have a combined deficit of $1.5 million, play a vital role in educating more than 1,000 children, many from low-income immigrant families. Closing those campuses, the group believed, would hamper the church’s mission of spreading the faith.

So the schools will stay open next year with a new tuition plan and a vigorous marketing campaign to fill empty seats. The diocese will hire a new associate superintendent to supervise their finances and development.

If successful, those efforts could be implemented throughout the 36-school system, which serves 20,000 students.

The Orange County diocese, one of the nation’s fastest-growing, is one of many moving to confront the enrollment dilemma with greater urgency. The Chicago archdiocese recently established a governing board that taps the expertise of philanthropists and business people to oversee finances. Most radically, the archdiocese in Washington, D.C., last year converted several parochial schools to publicly funded charters to allow continued operation in struggling inner-city communities.

In the Los Angeles archdiocese, with more than 80,000 students, low enrollment resulted in the closure of Daniel Murphy Catholic High School last year. Several other schools are underenrolled, but no closures are planned, said spokesman Tod Tamberg.

The L.A. archdiocese faces severe financial pressures brought about in part by increased operating costs and a $660-million settlement with victims of clergy abuse. But wealthier parishes in the archdiocese help subsidize poorer ones. And pre-kindergarten and kindergarten programs launched in several schools have attracted more than 1,000 students, Tamberg said.

The Orange County task force concluded that change must include system reform.

“We’re changing the whole paradigm of how schools are managed,” said co-chairman Mike Hagen. “The model that had been followed forever was that every school and parish was on their own and if they figured that they couldn’t make a go of it, the school would disappear. We feel it’s too important to continue doing it that way. We’re looking at these six schools as incubators, models.”

A key feature of the three-year plan is a restructured financial aid program, run by an outside firm, that will scale tuition to family need.

Struggling parishes will be linked with more affluent ones to provide advice and assist in fundraising for schools. The Orange Catholic Foundation will also eventually embark on a $25-million campaign to establish an endowment to fund tuition assistance.

Historically, the parish schools have not been sophisticated in financial issues, church leaders said, a finding supported by the Orange County task force.

“The schools were not acting in a fiscally responsible way, not because of anything evil but because things like balancing budgets were not part of their understanding,” Hagen said. “Some schools had programs that were expensive but didn’t really further outcomes. We’d have schools where teachers said they didn’t like the idea of putting two grades together so they’d have classes with 10 or 12 students.”

One of the biggest challenges has been the shift in Catholic pews from affluent and working-class parishioners to the working poor, many of them immigrants from countries where a Catholic education is reserved for the elite. That perception hinders enrollment from Orange County’s Latino and Vietnamese communities, said Schools Supt. Father Gerald M. Horan.

Even many large parishes are not filling local schools.

Horan estimates, for example, that St. Anthony Claret parish in Anaheim includes as many as 1,500 elementary school-age children. At least 900 of them are enrolled in religious education courses. But at St. Anthony Claret School, a kindergarten-through-eighth grade campus, enrollment stands at 173 students, including some students who transferred from St. Boniface.

Marilyn Taylor, St. Anthony principal, has taken some steps to boost enrollment. She said the school opened its pre-kindergarten class to 2-year-olds. The school offers accelerated reading and math and a popular after-school drama program.

Taylor was married in St. Anthony Claret parish, her children attended the school, and she taught there. But many of the people who once lived in the area moved inland for more affordable homes. The Latino, Filipino, Asian and white families whose children attend the school now are gardeners, factory workers and owners of small businesses, Taylor said. Many have lost jobs and they are hard-pressed to pay full tuition, which is set at $4,700 next year.

Taylor has been working with consultants from Catholic School Management, a planning firm based in Madison, Conn. St. Anthony’s pastor will give up pulpit time to school staff, parents and alumni to speak about the importance of a Catholic education.

The goal is to have at least 190 students enrolled at St. Anthony’s by the fall, Taylor said.

“We’ve been on some roller coasters,” Taylor said. “But what we have should be shared with more students and families, and my faith in God says yes, we can do it.”

It is also a matter of faith for Melinda Santivanez, whose daughter Katrina, 10, and son Isaac, 3, attend St. Anthony. She is a graduate of the school and echoes concerns of other parents who place the teaching of Christian values on an equal footing with academics.

“I’m happy the church is stepping in, although I feel they should have done that sooner and not let it get to this point,” Santivanez said. “But I’m excited to see what they’re going to do to bring in more revenue for the schools.”

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carla.rivera@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Dwindling enrollment

The task force in Orange County is dealing with six schools that have declining enrollment:

* Annunciation School, Fullerton

* St. Anthony Claret School, Anaheim

* St. Joseph School, Santa Ana

* St. Justin Martyr, Anaheim

* St. Polycarp School, Stanton

* School of Our Lady, Santa Ana

Catholic educators say enrollment in parochial schools began to decline in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.

Early 1960s: U.S. Catholic parochial schools enroll more than 5 million students in almost 13,000 schools.

By 1990: Enrollment drops to 2.5 million.

2000-09: More than 1,400 schools close, and the number of students declines by 460,000.

Since 1999: Enrollment in the West-Far West region that includes California declines from 461,000 to 434,000.

2007-08: 231,000 students enrolled in California Catholic schools.

2008-09: 221,000 enrolled.

Sources: National Catholic Educational Assn., Times reporting. Graphics reporting by Carla Rivera