Catholic schools blessed to find classrooms filling up

This being a Wednesday, students filed through brightly lit corridors and into the parish sanctuary for Mass.

It is a weekly ritual played out here at St. Peter Claver Regional Catholic School in Decatur and at Catholic schools all over the country —- at least those still opening their doors.

St. Peter, you might say, is one of the lucky ones.

Even as more and more Catholic schools across the country close their doors, the Archdiocese of Atlanta faces a decidedly different problem: more students than it can accommodate.

That is largely a result of the sizable number of Catholics, especially those of Hispanic descent and from the Northeast, who have migrated to Atlanta in recent decades. The archdiocese says the number of Catholics in the 69 counties it covers in North Georgia went from 100,000 in 1980 to 750,000 in 2008.

Archdiocese estimates for 2006 placed the number of Catholics in Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties at 457,000, almost half of them Hispanic.

“With the increase of Catholic families came increased demand for Catholic schools,” said Diane Starkovich, superintendent of schools.

This isn’t just about numbers, however, she said.

Both parents and school administrators point to the schools’ strong academics and faith-based environment as drawing points.

Roxy Hall, 39, said she didn’t hesitate to enroll her 9-year-old daughter Zaire Williamson at St. Peter after moving back to the area recently.

“It’s an excellent, excellent school,” she said. “The classes are small; and as an active Catholic, it’s very important to me that my daughter has exposure to my faith.”

Given these hard economic times, Atlanta’s Catholic schools are faring well.

“We’re in a good position,” Starkovich said. “Not only is the demand still high, each year we’re turning away students because we don’t have space for them.”

St. Pius X High School this year accepted 260 out of 450 applicants. Queen of Angels in Roswell, with 504 students, has 200 on a waiting list.

That’s not the case in many other parts of the country. Last year, 162 Catholic schools consolidated or closed, victims of a bad economy, population shifts or both, said Brian Gray, a spokesman for the National Catholic Educational Association.

By contrast, the Atlanta Archdiocese has seen slight growth from 11,560 students last year to 11,783, he said.

Preparing for future

Starkovich sees opportunities for more growth. She said there are areas in the archdiocese where the population has increased but there are no schools available.

“Either schools are full or there are none within a good driving distance,” Starkovich said.

Quoting a former NCEA president, Gray said, “We have buildings where we no longer have students [nationwide] and we have potential students where we have not yet built buildings.

“That’s very much true in Georgia’s suburbs.”

The archdiocese commissioned a study three years ago to look at its facilities and schools and expects recommendations in 30 to 60 days.

Starkovich is cautiously optimistic that new schools will be part of the recommendations but hesitates to guess about when and how many.

“That’s the crystal ball I don’t have,” she said.

Starkovich said the challenge here is the same as it has been in other parts of the country: how to finance the building of new schools since those funds come primarily from parishoners who may be experiencing economic stress. And while she’s happy for the growth in Atlanta, Starkovich said it’s disconcerting to watch other schools shut down, particularly in urban areas.

“We should all be concerned,” she said. “We’re losing an opportunity to educate those that need [it] the most, and that’s the inner-city disadvantaged students.”

Parents’ objectives

St. Peter is actually one of three schools merged into one in 2001 when the archdiocese closed St. Anthony’s in West End and Our Lady of Lourdes near the Martin Luther King Center, reorganizing them into St. Peter Claver.

St. Peter’s principal, Catherine Spencer, said that because of fierce loyalties to St. Anthony and Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Peter had a rocky start but has started to see some growth.

Spencer likened the school to “a hidden jewel with a wonderful blend of cultures and families” but acknowledged the $5,900-$7,500 annual tuition and transportation costs have been tough for many families.

Orderly classrooms and vivacious teachers and children characterize both St. Peter and Queen of Angels, situated 30 miles away just off Woodstock Road.

Like St. Peter, it is a regional school that holds Mass once a week. But unlike St. Peter, which has waiting lists for only its middle school, it has a waiting list for every grade. Students come from as far away as Canton, Marietta and Woodstock.

“It’s great for us because we know we have other kids [waiting] to come into the school,” said Kathryn Wood, Queen of Angels principal. “We’ve had families wait three to four years to get in.”

The school does face challenges. Wood said that while enrollment continues to climb, requests for financial aid have, too.

“Normally we have one sheet of names,” said Wood. “This year we had four.”

While the number of families requesting aid changes from day to day, Wood said the school has seen a 30 percent increase over last year; and financial aid amounts range from as little as $1,000 to a maximum of $4,000 per child. Annual tuition is $6,530.

Wood attributed the school’s continued growth to its ability to offer a quality education in a faith-based environment and its nearness to Blessed Trinity High School, making it easier for parents who have children in two or more grades.

Renee McDaniel is a teacher and mother of four at Queen of Angels. Both she and her husband, Tom, are products of Atlanta’s Catholic schools.

They chose Queen of Angels for its location and because, she said, they want their children “to be able to walk their faith all day every day and not just at home.”

Walking their faith begins the moment students enter their classrooms, where the day begins with prayers followed by a recitation of the school’s mission statement that it will “meet the spiritual, academic, social and emotional needs of each student.”

“You want a well-rounded child who is civic-minded, gets a blue ribbon education and his faith nurtured,” said Julie Smith, Queen of Angels’ curriculum coordinator. “That’s what we do here.”