Officials of the Archdiocese of Baltimore will hold meetings around the city on Monday to face parents and students angered by plans to close 13 Catholic schools in June.
The sessions are scheduled for 7 p.m. at Catholic High School of Baltimore on Edison Highway, Mount St. Joseph High School on Frederick Avenue and the Cardinal Gibbons School on Wilkens Avenue. Cardinal Gibbons is the only high school among those slated to close.
Monsignor Bob Hartnett, who has been in charge of school consolidation planning, emphasized that officials understand the angry response since news of the closings broke Wednesday afternoon.
"I think we need to listen to all those concerns," Hartnett said Thursday. But he also said: "I don't see us changing any of our decisions."
He said the archdiocesan offices downtown have received more phone calls than e-mails since the news broke. He said there's been a "steady number of calls. Most of them are angry." Sean Caine, a spokesman for the archdiocese, described the volume of calls and emails as "light" and their tone as "tempered but hopeful."
A group of 11 Cardinal Gibbons students and one graduate of the school showed up at the Catholic Center downtown in the morning asking to speak with Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien. He was not in, but the group met for about an hour with Bishop Denis J. Madden, Caine and Mary Ellen R. Fise, the program director for Catholic schools planning.
While they were inside, a group of Gibbons students stayed outisde on Cathedral street "chanting and waving signs," Hartnett said.
On the day after students were sent home with letters to parents detailing the closings, Hartnett said early this afternoon that it seemed "students are in classrooms, teachers are teaching."
Lay members of the archdiocesan staff visited all 13 schools on Thursday to answer questions and "talk to any students who are upset." He said they would be at the schools all day, and might return if the need arises.
The archdiocese told employees and parents on Wednesday that it would close 13 of its 64 schools at the end of the academic year.
The reorganization will displace 2,152 students and 325 teachers, staff and administrators. The displaced students, who make up nearly 10 percent of the 22,700 in the system, will be guaranteed a spot in a parochial school no more than five miles from their current school, but it's not yet clear how many employees will lose their jobs.
The reorganization includes the creation of new programs and a new elementary school on the campus of Seton Keough High School on the city's west side.
Hardest hit by the plan is Baltimore, which is slated to lose 10 of its 30 Catholic schools. They include St. Bernardine Catholic School, Father Charles Hall Catholic Elementary and Middle School, St. Katharine School and Queen of Peace Cluster, Mother Mary Lange Catholic School, Sacred Heart of Mary School, Our Lady of Fatima School, St. Rose of Lima School, Shrine of the Sacred Heart School, St. William of York School and Cardinal Gibbons.
In the county, three of 27 schools will close. They include Ascension School in Halethorpe, St. Clare School in Essex and Holy Family School in Randallstown.
Hartnett said some displaced students would be traveling slightly shorter distances to their nearest new school than they are now, some slightly more. He said the average distance between any closed school and any of its receiving schools is less than three miles. Students make their own way to school; the archdiocese does not provide transportation.
Average tuition at archdiocesan elementary schools is $5,200 for parishioners and $6,300 for nonparishioners. At current rates, the archdiocese says, the average tuition for the receiving schools is $132 less than the schools that will be closing.
Hartnett said all 1,500 families affected by the changes would get a call in the next few days to see if they need help with the transition, then a follow-up call, then another call during the summer.
Hiring patterns of the past three years suggest that many of the 231 teachers and 94 staff and administrators who are displaced in the consolidation will be able to find jobs in the system. In August, for instance, the archdiocese hired 145 new teachers and 150 staff. The year before, it hired 118 new teachers and 189 staff.
Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien said the archdiocese would work with local public schools to try to find jobs for employees who cannot be placed within the archdiocesan system. In the meantime, health and dental benefits for the 325 displaced employees will be extended through August.
The consolidation plan had been in the works since last spring, shortly after O'Brien announced that he was launching an effort to confront what he considered a "crisis" in the school system. He emphasized his commitment to guarantee every current student a spot, and to sustain the system without abandoning the city. But he said the archdiocese had to run the schools differently if it wanted them to stay open and maintain academic standards.
The challenges confronting the archdiocese mirror those faced by Catholic education in urban areas from the Midwest to the Northeast. In the decades since the peak enrollments of the 1960s, the thinning of the ranks of low-paid teaching nuns and brothers has forced schools to hire more expensive professional staff, ending the era of free or nearly free Catholic education. While tuitions were rising, Catholics were fleeing the cities for the suburbs, leaving behind lower-income families who could ill afford the expense.
In Baltimore, about a third of archdiocesan classrooms are empty. Elementary and middle schools have lost 20 percent of their enrollment since the 2001-2002 school year. Since then, the archdiocese -- which includes Baltimore, surrounding counties and Western Maryland -- has closed 16 of its schools.
Hartnett said members of his team visited every school in the system, compiling information on their neighborhoods, household incomes and academic programs. They conducted meetings to get opinions from parents, teachers and staff and the public. The result is a 36-page report that goes beyond school closings and mergers to describe an array of plans for adding programs and reforming school management.
One striking element of the reorganization is the possibility that the archdiocese would build the first new Catholic school in the city since 1960.
Details are sketchy, and the plan would depend on fundraising, but the idea is to have the school built on the campus of Seton Keough High School on South Caton Avenue. Until then, the new school, made up of students who now attend Father Charles Hall Catholic Elementary and Middle Schools, St. Bernardine Catholic School, and St. William of York, will attend classes in a building now standing at Seton Keough.
If the money can be raised, there's also a plan to renovate and expand the SS. James & John, Queen of Peace School on the east side, which is designated to receive students from St. Katharine School.
The plan calls for expanding tuition assistance across the archdiocese. The aid is now chiefly made available in the city.
The plan emphasizes a renewed commitment to the Catholic character of instruction, while recommending that the system expand its program offerings. Proposals include opening a new dual-language elementary school, doubling to four the number of schools offering programs for students with learning disabilities, and establishing a concentration in science, technology, engineering and math at four elementary schools. One elementary school would adopt a Montessori education approach for students ages 3-6.
School administration could also be reformed under a recommendation to give the superintendent, with advice from that school's individual governing board, greater authority to hire and fire principals, who in many schools now answer to the local pastor. The report also recommends creation of an archdiocesan school board with members appointed first by the archbishop, then elected by the board.