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We have narrowed our private school selection to St. Mary Magdalene in Apex. Based on what I have heard, it is a great, caring environment, but getting accepted may not be so easy. We were told (not by the school), but by a relative that we need to have a solid record of volunteering with our church, consistent church attendance, as well as regular monetary donations in order to have shot at getting accepted. Anyone know if this is true?
You should call them right away and see if they have a waitlist for that class yet, if they do you need to get on it. The priority will be registered parishioners with siblings currently at the school, registered parishioners, out of parish Catholics, and then all others. They will ask you to fill out a form identifying how much of your time and money you give to the parish, but that is to determine if you qualify for the parish discount, not whether you get accepted or not. I can't speak specifically about StMM, but I have had children at TFS and OLL and this is how contributions of time and money were handled. It did not factor into them getting into the school.
My girlfriend sends her kids to St Mary Magdeline(started this year) and she just enrolled her kids. She is a member of St. Michaels in Cary and I don't think she had any issues with not being accepted. Never mentioned a problem.
When we applied, we were not parishioners at any local Catholic church. We were accepted with the Catholic rate, but did have to show that we were donating to a parish to maintain the discounted rate.
The bottom line is money talks in the Catholic church.
BTW, IMHO, the school is a safe environment for your kids, but the curriculum is average.
We have recently moved our kids from another private school to STMM. Because of what we heard - environment, test scores, etc,
So far we are impressed. Teachers seem to be very responsive. Daily lesson plans, homework, and grades are all posted on renweb.com. Its a school oriented website.
Couple things I have noticed:
- The kid's work load is higher than the previous school they were at. The kids are going to have to be organized if they want to participate in sports or other activities.
- Strict environment with expectations on behavior and neatly wearing uniform.
- Parental involvement is high (not sure we going to be able to get away with dropping the kids off and driving away)
- Because of the workload and expectations are higher than at the previous school my kids attended - my kids are going through an "adjustment". The kids that have been there from the start are pretty well adjusted.
Not really familiar with the difficulty of getting accepted. We are long standing "donating" Catholics and have belonged to Saint Michaels for 15 years. Both kids were baptized there, received their first holy communion, etc. They are also very good students. Not sure how much of a factor each "really" is.
Anyway - those are my impressions so far. I'll update as the year goes on.
When we applied, we were not parishioners at any local Catholic church. We were accepted with the Catholic rate, but did have to show that we were donating to a parish to maintain the discounted rate.
The bottom line is money talks in the Catholic church.
I don't have personal knowledge of this school and parish, but generally parochial schools are subsidized by donations to parishes and to the diocese by parishioners. They are probably giving a tuition discount to those who prove they give on a regular basis because those people are already contributing to the funding of the school in an indirect manner. It's probably a policy to avoid having those parishioners overpay.
I don't have personal knowledge of this school and parish, but generally parochial schools are subsidized by donations to parishes and to the diocese by parishioners. They are probably giving a tuition discount to those who prove they give on a regular basis because those people are already contributing to the funding of the school in an indirect manner. It's probably a policy to avoid having those parishioners overpay.
Good point. No parish I've heard of is getting rich, by any means, from its school. Teachers, principals, etc. work for a pittance, because it's a cause they believe in.
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