Revitalizing Catholic Schools

Revitalizing Catholic Schools – an O’Meara Ferguson Whitepaper – January 4, 2012

There are many reasons given for the increasing financial challenges facing our Catholic Schools, but few, if any, solutions are provided to give hope. Often, the idea of a healthy, vibrant Catholic school system is considered something of the past. Likewise, most plans for the future of Catholic education are presented in the context of a secularized remake along parameters that risk its very identity—its essential Catholic character.

O’Meara Ferguson, Whelan and Conway is committed to assisting the Catholic Church in identifying actionable solutions that will offer lasting, systematic temporal health to enable her to more fully focus on her Apostolic mission. Over the past 11 years this work has included consultancy to over 20% of the Catholic dioceses of the U.S. and, over the past 2 years in particular, to over 400 Catholic schools. As part of this work, we have conducted a survey of the current landscape and challenges for Catholic education, with an eye to identifying long-term solutions.

This work has led to the development of a manual that can assist school leadership to foster creativity and local ownership so that schools can properly address their own situations. This School Revitalization Manual (the Manual) will be made available at O’Meara Ferguson’s symposium on Catholic education, Catholic Education: Sustaining the Mission to be held in San Antonio, Texas, February 8-10, 2012.

As a predecessor to the Manual, O’Meara Ferguson is offering a whitepaper, Revitalizing Catholic Schools: Alternative Analysis and Solutions for Catholic Schools which begins to analyze the data collected through its recent school consultancies. This analysis is intended to begin to provide a new empirically-based foundation from which to initiate a more fact-based approach to problem solving for Catholic schools. While this is admittedly only a first step, it is hoped that this new perspective on the source of potential solutions to the challenges facing Catholic schools will also lead to a more meaningful vision of future health for Catholic schools, built on a new, but inherently Catholic dynamic.

On this, the feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who is the patroness of Catholic Schools, we implore her intercession.

Click below to download the whitepaper:

• Revitalizing Catholic Schools: Alternative Analysis and Solutions for Catholic Schools