Building An Education Catholic School Says Expansion Is The Only Way To Keep Up With Growth

Father Leo Boyle was sent to North Idaho to build a school and a priory.

Monday, as a crane operator maneuvered sections of a modular school house onto a framed foundation, his mission inched toward completion.

Boyle, originally from Ireland, moved to Idaho from Phoenix 16 months ago. He’s one of four priests serving the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Post Falls. The church’s rapidly growing congregation has bolstered demand for the new $350,000 boys school under construction next to the church.

The church is part of the Society of St. Pius X, formed in 1970 by seminarians who wanted to preserve traditional catechisms and Latin Mass rather than move to the “new catechism” reforms embraced by Vatican II.

Immaculate Conception’s congregation has surged this decade, from approximately 200 in 1990 to a current Mass attendance of 1,300.

That rapid growth has stretched the capacity of the small existing school, built in 1985. Classes have spilled out into church hallways, straining teachers’ ability to discipline and provide a solid academic atmosphere.

“I had no option. I had to build it,” Boyle said. “We were overcrowded.”

The rising enrollment reflects an increased demand for education centered around the ancient Catholic ritual, Boyle said.

“It’s a classical education. The girls do a lot better without the boys. They are only a distraction to each other, as you would expect,” he said.

The girls attend a sister academy, St. Dominic’s School, run by the Dominican Sisters of France.

Although Catholic students are favored for admission at the schools, they also accept a percentage of non-Catholic students. They also board a number of out-of-state students with local families. The new school is being paid for through tuition, fund raising and donations.

“We depend on the generosity of our benefactors and our parishioners,” Boyle said.

“You try to make your dollars stretch.”

For that task, it helps to have a project consultant in the congregation.

Parishioner Richard Bullard, a retired Southern California businessman who moved to Post Falls in 1990, has been overseeing construction, cutting costs and negotiating through complicated city codes.

At $46 per square foot, the school’s price tag is low compared to most public school construction costs, Bullard points out.

And although his wife keeps encouraging him to retire in earnest (she suggests fishing), Bullard already has his sights set on building a new priory and school gymnasium.

When finished on Feb. 1, the 7,500-square-foot building will add eight classrooms, a library and a teacher’s lounge, bumping the school’s capacity to 226.

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BUILDING PROJECT When finished, the 7,500-square-foot building will add eight classrooms, a library and teachers’ lounge, bumping the school’s capacity to 226.