September 5, 2009
Diocesan school board members examine issues facing schools
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Dom Puglisi, right, superintendent of Catholic schools, discusses challenges facing schools in the diocese with Tricia Ramos, president of the Diocesan School Board and a parishioner at St. John the Baptist Parish in Folsom. Cathy Joyce/Herald photo
For many Catholic school parents, serving on the advisory council of their
child’s elementary school is a rite of passage. The child enters kindergarten
and the parents enter the world of Catholic education, with its emphasis
on parental involvement and volunteer work.
Parents serve on event committees, bid on their child’s artwork at the annual school auction, and eventually learn enough about the community to serve on the Catholic School Advisory Council, or CSAC. Each of the Sacramento Diocese’s 43 elementary schools and four diocesan high schools is supported by its own CSAC.
Not commonly known is that these school councils have a counterpart at the diocesan level. The Diocesan School Board, comprised of volunteers from across the 20 counties of the diocese, offer their talents and experience in support of Bishop Jaime Soto, the superintendent of schools, and all of the diocesan Catholic schools.
With enrollment at Catholic schools in a steady decline nationwide, and the current economic downturn predicting a steeper decline in the immediate future, the work of the Diocesan School Board has never been more critical.
Twenty-four parishioners, representing most of the geographical areas of the diocese and a wide range of professional experiences, serve three-year terms on the board. They work in committees challenged to meet specific goals each school year, and are charged with finding talented people outside the board to serve on subcommittees.
“The idea is to bring in more people, with more expertise and talents, to help us think creatively,” said Dom Puglisi, superintendent of Catholic schools. “We’ve got to be as creative and innovative as we can.”
Creative innovation is certainly needed. More than half of all Catholic schools in the United States have closed since the peak of Catholic education in 1965, and in the 2008-09 school year alone, 162 Catholic schools closed or consolidated nationwide, according to reports issued by the National Catholic Educational Association.
In the Sacramento Diocese, recent years have seen the closure of St. Thomas More School in Paradise and the consolidation of All Hallows and St. Peter Schools in Sacramento into a new school, John Paul II, in 2005; the closure of St. Lawrence School in North Highlands in 2007; the closures of Notre Dame School in Marysville and Bishop Quinn High School in Palo Cedro in 2008; and in 2009, the earlier-than-planned consolidation of St. Anne and St. Patrick Schools in Sacramento.
“In enrollments we did pretty well, comparatively,” Puglisi said. “The national average for declining enrollment in diocesan elementary schools has been running at about 3.5 percent for the past several years, and we’re at only two percent.”
But with some of the recession’s hardest-hit counties in California falling within the diocese’s boundaries, Catholic education in the diocese faces serious challenges ahead.
Diocesan school board members meet those challenges with organization, focus and the creative synergy that arises when people from different backgrounds meet to solve problems, says board member Lynette Magnino.
A member of Good Shepherd Parish in Elk Grove, Magnino has a background in public relations and marketing and chairs the board’s public relations committee. She noted that the range of board members’ professional experiences comes together to serve the members’ shared passion: making Catholic education available to everyone.
John O’Brien, past president of the board, said that economic hardship is driving families away from Catholic schools, and a lack of awareness keeps some families from even considering Catholic education.
O’Brien, a retired insurance company executive and a member of St. John the Baptist Parish in Folsom, also noted that the fastest-growing group of diocesan Catholics is Hispanic families — they make up 50 percent of all Catholics in the diocese, yet represent only 10 percent of the families in diocesan schools.
“We have to find a way to invite those families to become part of Catholic school families,” he said, “and we’re going to have to find a way to help all families who would like to send their children to Catholic schools and can’t.”
Board secretary Patti Keener, a member of St. Basil Parish in Vallejo and the budget analyst for Vallejo’s fire department, serves on the board’s finance committee.
She explained that the K-8 schools in the diocese’s 20 counties each inhabit distinct communities with very different economic realities. Some schools compete with good local public schools and others with failing public schools. Some schools are in areas hard hit by unemployment, and some have lots of families whose livelihoods seem insulated from the economic downturn.
Keener added that board members continue to gather information to help come up with creative strategies. They surveyed groups of Catholics in the diocese last year, and plan to research strategies this year that other dioceses use to support their Catholic schools.
David Orosco, chair of the finance committee, works in the state Legislature and is a member of Presentation Parish in Sacramento.
The current financial model for Catholic schools is so tied to the ups and downs of the economy that Catholic education becomes somewhat of a luxury, Orosco contended. He noted that although Catholic schools in general could make a better case for the value of a family’s overall investment in Catholic education, the better case doesn’t help when the family just can’t meet the tuition.
Tricia Ramos, the board’s new president and a parishioner at St. John the Baptist Parish in Folsom, emphasized the contributions that subcommittee members make to the school board.
“The subcommittees bring new talent and new ideas,” she said. “They’re crucial.”
Many of the board’s subcommittee members come from CSACs, Ramos explained, but board members can invite anyone to help — parishioners, parent volunteers and even non-Catholics who are interested in supporting Catholic education.
Ramos, who works for the state, described watching young students on their first day of school this year at St. John Notre Dame School in Folsom, where her own two children are students.
“They are taught and they live Catholic morals and values,” she said. “They’re Catholic all day long. I see it in the classroom, in the way they treat one another and they way they respond to adults.
“It fills me up just to see them,” she added. “This is a little selfish, I know, but besides doing all this work for them, I also do it for me.”
