Kids Put On Waiting List For Catholic Schools

At church, home, work, the grocery store, the gas station and just about everywhere else she goes, Sally Merriwether hears the same question: “Do you think my kid could get into school?”

In the past, Merriwether, principal of Assumption Catholic School, has been glad to hear the question. Enrollment had been lagging and the school, run by Assumption Catholic Church, was always happy to have another sheep in the fold.

But a growing waiting list at Assumption and other Catholic schools on the North Side means principals like Merriwether answer with a polite “no” and a request for a phone number.

Eddie and Joan Ambriez have Nathan, 6, on the waiting list for kindergarten. The waiting lists mean they have to find alternate schools, then switch their children when a place in the catholic school comes open.

“Nathan is young enough that he’ll get over it, but we didn’t want to switch him (from public schools),” said Joan Ambriez.

That scenario is being played out in at least two other North Side Catholic schools: St. Charles, which, like Assumption, is near the rapidly expanding Indian Trail neighborhood; and St. Thomas More, in the Country Homes area.

Catholic schools in the Spokane Diocese have boomed the last five years after a recession in the 1980s.

Assumption and St. Thomas More both have waiting lists of about 60.

Most of those on waiting lists are families in the church parish. Parishes partially support the schools, so putting a church family on a list is “very, very difficult,” said St. Thomas More principal Ann Doherty.

The schools are at a loss to deal with the lists.

Trinity Catholic School has just reopened its doors to middle school students. The school dropped grades 7 and 8 about 10 years ago, according to principal Mike Trudeau.

But others don’t have the space or the money to expand rooms and hire more teachers.

Merriwether and the Assumption parish had to decide how to spend their scarce money. Assumption decided to build a computer lab and media room, and enlarge cramped preschool and kindergarten rooms.

Merriwether said the school would like to accommodate the demand, but expanding at a single grade - like the highly popular kindergarten classes - could mean the school’s class sizes would be large for the next eight years.

The growth, according to Duane Schaefer, superintendent of schools for the Spokane Diocese, can be attributed to several things. All the schools with waiting lists are near developing areas which tend to have young families.

Most parents want the religious instruction.

“We didn’t like that they cut God out of the public schools,” said Joan Ambriez. “We want them to be raise with the values we have.”

Also, a “pay what you can” program implimented three years ago has helped draw more students.

“At one time, people had the perception that Catholic schools were for the rich because there was a tuition involved,” Shaefer said. “That’s really not a correct perception. Some are paying practically nothing.”

Assumption parent John Willard said it is worth the sacrifices he and his wife Peggy make for Jake, a first-grader, and Monica, who is in second grade.

They waited three years to buy new furniture for their house, and Willard drives a battered, 20-year-old truck.

But the stricter discipline at Catholic schools is one of several selling points. “As you go on in life, if you learned at a young age to apply yourself to your studies, that discipline will transfer over to other things,” said John Willard, himself a Catholic school product.

, DataTimes