In Response to the Catholic Schools Decision

Friends, peace be with you.

As many of you know, on December 5, it was announced that the pastors of the Cedar Rapids parishes had reached consensus and had voted in favor of systemization of the metro Catholic schools into a more formal system and centralizing the two metro middle schools into one. I thought I would clarify for some of you why I voted the way I did in case there are questions or concerns. Let me say from the start that I know some of you are disappointed in this and I think I understand why. Some of you told me that you were concerned about a loss of local control and loss of school choice. My hope is that we will actually have more choices after this and that the local control will shift to a larger entity rather than being lost. But I appreciate you raising these concerns and the civility with which you did so. I also want to say these are just my thoughts, not a commentary on what happened in the room when the pastors were meeting and certainly not to be seen as a definitive statement of the pros and cons.

Let me deal with the two parts, systemization and consolidation of the middle school, separately. First, I voted in favor of systemization because I think it will help improve the education of our students, tamp down some of the unhealthy competition between metro Catholic schools, continue to make teacher and staff pay parity a priority, and make parish subsidies more fair. Please allow a brief explanation of each of these. I think the schools will be encouraged to share classes and activities with other schools if they are part of a system, which should mean a better education for all students. I think this sharing of resources should mean less of a sense that one school is better than another because they should all be teaching a common curriculum to their students. I know that systemization has already allowed for better pay for teachers and staff and I believe it will continue to do so, with an emphasis on benefits in the coming years. And, lastly, my hope is that a system will mean that parishes will be able to have more of a say in the amount of their overall budget that can go toward Catholic education because we will all be paying for everything instead of one parish or a small group of parishes largely being responsible for paying for the entirety of one school.

Now onto the consolidation of the middle school. This was, by far, the harder decision for me. I vacillated back and forth about whether this was a good decision to do or not. The week before we came together, I was prepared to say no because I felt that the formal systemization was enough of a change for people and that we should get that in place before we would consider consolidating schools. However, in the end, I voted in favor of it because I believe it accomplishes all of the positive things systemization does and more. I think it will mean a better education for middle school students because it's easier to share resources if they are in the same location. I believe students will have more choice in classes because teachers will be able to specialize in areas if they aren’t having to cover the same curriculum that is being taught a few miles away in another building. I think teachers will benefit not only from better pay but from peer support if they aren’t the only middle school math or science or religion teacher. I think it will eliminate any unhealthy competition between LaSalle and Regis and will reduce parish subsidies because parishes will not be paying for two separate buildings. One benefit that I also saw was that all of our schools are at capacity and we are going to have to make some tough decisions in the coming years as to who gets admitted to our schools. My hope is that, in particular with LaSalle Catholic School, moving the middle school will either free up some space there if the middle school moves elsewhere or, if the decision is made to have the central middle school at LaSalle, to construct a large enough building that it can better accommodate the increased number of students.

Let me conclude by, again, acknowledging that some of you are disappointed in me, some are happy with me, and many have an unchanged opinion of me because you don’t have a “dog in the fight”. To those disappointed, I hope you can see why I voted the way I did. To those happy, please remember that those disappointed are still our brothers and sisters and they probably need someone to complain to. And to the rest, just be happy you don’t have to worry about one controversy.