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There will be a scant few that survive, here and there and if people want their kids to go to Catholic school they will have them make the trip, just as they do with Catholic HS. St. Anne's in Garden City already has a "welcome St. Thomas families" thing on their website.
If you have kids in Catholic school and there's only one class per grade, you need to read the writing on the wall.
People don't see the value in Catholic grammar school with the taxes on LI. High school is a different story.
About 12 years ago we had a neighbor who was debating this very thing. The wife felt grammar school would lay a great foundation for both learning and character building and then public HS. The hubby was opposite, but for a very interesting reason. He felt the acceptance pool for college would be from a smaller segment and therefore his son, who was brilliant might have his pick of colleges.
Comparing a chaminade/holy trinity/Kellenberg to say a Friends academy you are right it is a bargain.
That being said i know plenty (myself included) who went through the catholic high schools and view them as a bit of a scam.
Also, in my lifetime no one has ever said “I want to move to Long Island for the cheap cost of living” maybe people today or 20 years ago cared about tax+tuition but plenty down the road...I’m just not sure the viability is there
Yes only time will tell. I do not see any but a few grammar schools surviving. And that ironically will create a demand. There's only so many kids a Catholic grammar school can hold.
Your parents were probably "Catholic school or bust" people....we sent our son to Catholic HS because we knew he would reap benefits from it that he would not at our public HS....and he did, and he HATED us for sending him there but now admits it was the right choice. It changed his whole trajectory. I do not agree with sending your kids to any school - public or private - because you believe it's the path you must follow. For this reason, I think that the high schools can survive....more and more, people aren't willing to pony up for K-8 and save the money for HS. It's actually a real bone of contention for people who DO spend the money on K-8, they see the other people as some sort of carpetbaggers.
About 12 years ago we had a neighbor who was debating this very thing. The wife felt grammar school would lay a great foundation for both learning and character building and then public HS. The hubby was opposite, but for a very interesting reason. He felt the acceptance pool for college would be from a smaller segment and therefore his son, who was brilliant might have his pick of colleges.
I've known families who did what they wife wanted to do, to me those are the parents who think they can take their foot off the gas once their kids are out of MS. Not the case, probably, with your neighbors and a super smart kid. But you're taking kids away from everyone they know and tossing them into a pool with a bunch of unknowns, don't know why anyone would want to do that...for better or worse whether they want to be or not private HS kids are on a certain track. Take the kid from a dinky little school and send him to a big public HS, desperate to make friends, who knows what happens. If you believe that school lays the foundation for learning and character you're halfway to doomsday.
We had a fam down the road here who sent their kid to a pricey secular private that starts in 6th grade. Plan was to send him back to public for HS. Kid gets to ninth grade - OF COURSE he doesn't want to do that! By then his younger sib was starting 6th grade parents had decided they didn't want to pay anymore so she NEVER got the cushy private school.
Other neighbors sent their kids to same school - oldest went and graduated. Second one starts - I'm at the bus stop with mom and the youngest and I can hear her on the phone with middle hellion "you can have your phone back when you start doing your homework". You're paying $25K a year for that??? He ends up transferring back to public in HS "for sports reasons" (did I mention these people are multi millionaires??) and he gets a D3 scholarship to a crappy college in a town you don't want to be in after sundown.
Lots of people out there not using their noggins. We sent our kids to the HS that fit them best. People thought we were nuts that all our kids don't go to the same school, it's not that unusual (met lots of people at CAtholic HS who had kids at other schools). My only regret not sending the youngest to Catholic school is the complete disruption to her schooling would not have happened if we did.
Lots of people out there not using their noggins. We sent our kids to the HS that fit them best. People thought we were nuts that all our kids don't go to the same school, it's not that unusual (met lots of people at CAtholic HS who had kids at other schools). My only regret not sending the youngest to Catholic school is the complete disruption to her schooling would not have happened if we did.
Not all that uncommon in booming areas of the south. Myself and my brother and sister all went to different high schools all because they kept changing the district lines (and new school construction) because of the rapid growth in FL in the 90s.
Forty or more years ago, under the editorship of Fr. Paul McKeever, the weekly Long Island Catholic published a grade-by-grade enrollment chart of the Catholic elementary schools on Long Island. The parish pastors, the diocesan education department and the Morning Star Initiative all knew the recent figures last October, when the BEDS forms were sent to the State Education Department. Yet, the pastors, the principals, the diocesan education department, and the Morning Star Initiative did not share these numbers with the Catholic laity.
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A parallel problem exists with public school enrollment numbers. Grade-by-grade enrollment is important because it shows trends, if a trend exists of increasing, dropping, or stable enrollment.
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And a parallel problem exists with colleges and universities, which tend to lump figures from certificate programs with four-year bachelor courses, thereby inflating their enrollments.
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Not all that uncommon in booming areas of the south. Myself and my brother and sister all went to different high schools all because they kept changing the district lines (and new school construction) because of the rapid growth in FL in the 90s.
Yeah same happens here with new schools...but the new HSs open only with 9th and 10th grades and younger sibs that are there at the old school can grandfather in. But people aren't as married to a certain school like they are on LI either. But yeah I see a lot more people choosing all types of schools here and after almost 20 years dealing with schools there's no way I would choose a public school anywhere to educate my kids. Glad we're almost done. The curriculum, the SUPER liberal agenda (and I'm not particularly conservative)...the lens through which its all taught (ie CAtholic school has more a "service" angle to some of the stuff they teach)....it's become unreal. Real indoctrination type stuff. And the past year has shown people are more than happy to pack their kids off to school and cover their eyes and ears.
Forty or more years ago, under the editorship of Fr. Paul McKeever, the weekly Long Island Catholic published a grade-by-grade enrollment chart of the Catholic elementary schools on Long Island. The parish pastors, the diocesan education department and the Morning Star Initiative all knew the recent figures last October, when the BEDS forms were sent to the State Education Department. Yet, the pastors, the principals, the diocesan education department, and the Morning Star Initiative did not share these numbers with the Catholic laity.
---
A parallel problem exists with public school enrollment numbers. Grade-by-grade enrollment is important because it shows trends, if a trend exists of increasing, dropping, or stable enrollment.
---
And a parallel problem exists with colleges and universities, which tend to lump figures from certificate programs with four-year bachelor courses, thereby inflating their enrollments.
---
A friend tells me I am asking for data that schools don't want you to learn, because the frail numbers will scare potential customers.
But will they? Let say the average property tax on a house is 12k..the tuition for chaminade, kellenberg etc is roughly the same at 12k a year. Add it up its basically a year at college tuition for a top notch school which despite all the hype not all students go to those schools after 4 years of catholic high school
Even pre-covid, the better catholic high schools on Long island had no problems attracting students. So the answer to your question of "will they?" would appear to be a resounding yes.
If no Catholic schools, will parents send their kids to public? Probably not. As long as parents exist out there who can pay private tuition, private schools will be around.
In NJ some famous ones like St Anthony, Paterson Catholic and St Patrick closed because they are inner city, and the people who can afford to support a private school live elsewhere.
St Patrick actually reopened under a new name in the burbs. Its called The Patrick School.
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