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Thursday Thoughts
November 20, 2008
Carlton Rider, Principal |
During the past few weeks I have been
sharing with you information concerning our
drop in enrollment for this current school
year and some of the factors that may have
contributed to this sudden drop after two
years of fairly good growth. I have
discussed our church attendance figures,
number of baptisms and funerals, and the
number of students attending our school from
our parish as compared to those attending
who are not of the Catholic faith or are not
members of St. Mary parish. I have also
given you some of the reasons why parents
have chosen to withdraw their children from
our school over the past year. With all this
said, what can we expect next year and in
the years to come as regards enrollment and
how do we adjust to possible further
declines?
Our Advisory Board is aware of the figures
shared with you through this column and will
be discussing future plans beginning in
January. Until then I can at least give you
some indication of what might be discussed.
An area of concern has been the number of
students enrolled in our kindergarten
program over the past nine years. Except for
the 2006/2007 school year when we had 40
students, our average has been around 30 for
the two classes. That averages out to around
15 students per class which isn’t very good,
financially speaking. I know that parents
like this situation but still it’s not a
good thing to have from a financial
perspective. How has this affected our first
grade? Except for this current school year
and the 2002/2003 school year, we have
averaged 40 or more students in our first
grade which has allowed us to keep two first
grade classrooms. Several who chose not to
send their child to our kindergarten have
enrolled in our first grade and have kept
their child in our school after the first
grade. Some questions about this situation:
is cost a factor in a family choosing not to
send their child to our kindergarten or are
there other reasons? I am told that
Lancaster City Schools now has a five
day/full day program available and other
Christian/private schools offer both full
and half day programs. Up until about 8 – 10
years ago we offered both options but
parents tended to go with the full day
program until it became hard to justify a
half-day program with only a few students
enrolled. I think that it would be a
no-brainer to say that we need to seriously
consider whether we can afford two
kindergarten classes if we only have 15 or
less in a class.
At the other end of the spectrum is our
Middle School population (grades 6, 7, 8).
Except for a seventh grade class during the
2003/2004 school year, we have had at least
50 students in our 6th, 7th, and 8th grade
classes. This is due in large part to the
fact that after the fifth grade, students
from St. Bernadette come to St. Mary’s for
their 6th, 7th, and 8th grade years. In a
real sense, our Middle School is more
regional than parish based and this has
added more stability to this level than our
primary levels, which are more St. Mary
parish based. If our parish population is
declining then one would only expect that
our school population would follow the
pattern. There were years during which time
we had as many as 80 students in a Middle
School class divided into three homerooms.
With the above concerns in mind, I think
that we have to ask ourselves a question
that has been asked by some of our teachers,
board members, and parents. That question is
this: What have we done to promote our
Catholic school in our community and
throughout the area? Perhaps we have been
sitting too long thinking that people would
come to us. Anyone in the business world
will tell you that if you are proud of your
product, believe in your product, and want
others to invest in your product you have to
market your product. Marketing has been a
topic discussed at our Advisory Board
meetings off and on for many years with no
real lasting plan implemented. Good ideas
were shared but nothing long-lasting was
ever developed. Perhaps if we really believe
in what we are doing here at St. Mary’s we
need to get very serious about developing a
marketing plan and following through with
that plan. We can’t sit and wait for people
to come to us because those days are gone.
We have to go out to them and sell a product
that we are proud to be a part.
A reminder that Wednesday, November 26th is
an early dismissal. Students will be
dismissed at 1:30 p.m. Lancaster City
Schools will not be transporting that day
due to parent conferences in that district.
There will be a grub day on Wednesday,
November 26th with proceeds being given to
the Brenden P. Krannitz Scholarship Fund.
Minimum is a $1.00 donation.
Previous Messages:
November 13, 2008
November 6, 2008
October 30, 2008
October 23, 2008
October 16, 2008
October 9, 2008
October 2, 2008
September 25, 2008
September 18, 2008
September 11, 2008
September 4, 2008
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