Catholic educators strive to keep institution afloat

Oakland Tribune, Oct 15, 2007 by Katy Murphy

Rick Kruska, the new superintendent of Catholic schools in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, has some unlikely company in his office.

Happy Feet wind-ups and other stuffed penguin gifts began taking up residence soon after Kruska started the job in July.

You might say Kruska brought it upon himself.

Over the summer, the former Nokia executive and school principal sent copies of John Kotter's popular biz-lit book, "Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions," to principals throughout the diocese.

Kruska sees the penguin characters in the book -- standing on blocks of melting ice, wondering what to do next -- as a metaphor for Catholic educators who watch worriedly as their enrollment and revenue dwindle.

The summer reading selection was intended to be thought- provoking. It also was something of a sales pitch.Kruska is working to build a consortium, a group of schools that would standardize many of their business practices and share ideas and the proceeds from central fundraising campaigns.

He believes the model could infuse Catholic schools in the Oakland diocese with new ideas, resources and energy. Washington, D.C., and San Francisco have adopted similar strategies to improve their schools.

Many agree something needs to change, and quickly. Catholic school enrollment nationwide, at 2.3 million students, is roughly half of what it was at its peak in the 1960s. The East Bay is not exempt from the downward trend.

Oakland once had 18 Catholic elementary schools; it now has eight. Berkeley has just one after the closure this summer of St. Joseph the Worker School. The pastor of the church said years of low enrollment and a mounting deficit left him no choice.

The closure of St. Joseph's sent ripples of concern to other Catholic schools. But Kruska -- who arrived after the pastor's decision was made -- has assured principals closing schools is not in his plan.

Kruska is unlikely to launch a "save our schools" campaign anytime soon, though. To him, the concept sounds too negative, too desperate. He prefers to frame the challenges facing the parochial schools in terms of improvement and growth. For that to happen, he says, the system needs to approach what he calls the "business of education" differently.

"We haven't gotten away from this 'If you build it they will come' concept," Kruska said, referring to the days when families lined up around the block to enroll, as often directed by their pastors.

Now that people have more options and tuition has risen (largely, because costs increased as lay teachers began to replace nuns), schools need to market themselves better, he said.

"As a Catholic educational community, we haven't been really clear on 'Why would you pay $5,000 for a Catholic education when your kids can learn algebra at a public school for free?"

Kruska believes a consortium of schools will help members learn how to recruit new families, improve their academic programs -- especially in the sciences and in the instruction of English language learners -- and leverage needed resources.

"A lot of foundations won't talk to you if you're an individual school," he said.

The schools in the consortium might decide, for example, to standardize their entrance exams and application processes, which would make it easier for children to transfer schools. They could make purchases in bulk to get better deals.

And consortium staff would raise money, to be shared among the members, for such things as landscaping or building maintenance.

Kruska says the consortium won't function as a top-down, central office bureaucracy. The participating schools -- who will make a three-year minimum commitment -- would make the decisions.

Kruska hopes to hire an executive director by Nov. 1 and to give short-term contracts to two financial and academic consultants, for a total annual budget of around $250,000.

But convincing a group of historically autonomous schools to commit to the unknown is not easy. Of the 47 elementary schools in the diocese, about nine -- including Our Lady of the Rosary in Union City; Queen of All Saints in Concord; St. Anthony, St. Bernard, St. Jarlath, St. Elizabeth and St. Martin de Porres in Oakland; St. Barnabas in Alameda and St. Cornelius in Richmond -- expressed interest in the idea.

"A lot of the schools are worried about restrictions on them," Kruska said, before leaving to talk to a concerned faculty group in Concord. "They're afraid to lose their unique identity, and since it's a new thing, it's kind of scary in that way."

As of last week, only about four of those schools appeared ready to join, Kruska said.

St. Jarlath School in East Oakland is one of them.

M. Katherine Capra, St. Jarlath's principal, said many questions remain about the structure of the consortium and how it will work. But, she said, her school needs all of the support it can get.

"We're on the edge of greatness," Capra said. "But we need students."

The old, high-ceilinged building has 136 children in kindergarten through eighth grade, an average of 15 students in each class. And because most of the families are of modest means, not everyone pays full tuition.