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 Growing concern about falling enrollment in inner-city Catholic schools has been on Father Tracy’s mind for a while. Working with the Catholic Education Foundation in Los Angeles and a core team of like-minded priests, they brought 81 pastors and parish administrators together on October 1st to address this issue head-on.
Father Tracy O’Sullivan, O.Carm., kicked-off the presentations from three pastors who work at parishes in the poorest neighborhoods and a fourth pastor whose wealthy parish has an incredible sister-parish relationship with an inner-city parish.
Already a veteran of working in Chicago inner-city schools, Father Tracy has been in Los Angeles for 14 years. He stressed the role of the pastor to work closely with the principal in marketing their schools to the parish families and the community. He focused on the parochial school’s role in the student’s academic, spiritual and physical development—“it is the great tradition of Catholic schools across America to live the Gospels, particularly in service to poor, immigrant and marginalized children.”
He identified the pastor’s role in building community between the parish and its school. The school is a place of hope and change, security and peace. Children attending Catholic schools are not like the other children in the neighborhood—and their community expects more from them. He encouraged pastors to teach all of their parishioners about the value of education—he said, “A Catholic school education is a ticket out of the ghetto.”
To emphasize this point, Ignacio Higareda, Ph.D., in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University presented summary results from a study done last spring on students supported by the Catholic Education Foundation. These students are the poorest of the poor, reflecting the communities where they live. Their results were simply amazing. One hundred percent of the 8th graders continued on to high school. And, 98% of those students completed high school with a degree, and 98% of those graduates went on to a 2 or 4-year college. This compares with a 50-60% drop-out rate among their peers at local public schools.
Former Los Angeles Mayor, Richard Riordan, addressed the pastors on the subject of leadership. He said “it is every child’s God-given right to have quality education and health care.” He emphasized Catholic schools have been helping the poor for many generations in LA and the community simply expects Catholic school students to do better than their peers. He sited his four principles of leadership: courage, giving, empowering and relentlessly pursuing goals. He urged the pastors to work with empowered school boards on issues related to development and marketing.
Among the other presenters was Monsignor Tim Dyer who is pastor to two elementary schools in the inner city. He asked the priests to think of their parish schools as academies for leadership in the Catholic Church and to challenge parish families to participate in the school as well cate-chesis classes. He stressed the importance of having a strong principal and provided tips on how to develop a successful working relationship.
Monsignor John Barry who is a pastor to a wealthier parish community in Manhattan Beach described the sister relationship his parish has with Father Peter Banks’ parish in Watts. Both Monsignor Barry and Father Peter discussed the way this relationship works and how important is it to provide their communities with this opportunity to serve each other.
The conference took place at the Doheny Campus of Mount Saint Mary’s College. College president, Dr. Jackie Doud, Ph.D., welcomed the priests and identified the work of inner-city parish schools as critical to the continuum of education, especially for children born into poverty. She noted 98% of the students at her college receive financial aid and many of those students come from a history of Catholic school education in Los Angeles.
 The priests responded enthusiastically to a questionnaire and future conferences will be scheduled to pursue issues such as school boards, marketing, pastor-principal relationships, and development.
Kathleen H. Anderson is the executive director of the Catholic Education Foundation of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a position she has held since July 2003. This year, the foundation is providing $11.5 million in tuition assistance programs to 9,000 students attending Catholic schools in the LA Archdiocese. Prior to joining the CEF, Kathy had a career in corporate and international banking and was CEO of Lockheed Martin Finance Corporation. She is a graduate of the University of Santa Clara and serves on their Board of Regents.
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