Tuition assistance totaling $120,085 from the Harvest of Thanks, Springtime of Hope education endowment is available for distribution to diocesan schools for the 2007-2008 school year.
Teacher Deana Strack leads a group of third-graders in a reading session at St. Mary School in Edwardsville. St. Mary used its tuition assistance funds from the Harvest of Thanks, Springtime of Hope campaign to help a family that found itself in an emergency situation. The figure represents a $21,985 increase from the previous year's total distribution of $98,100. Barb Burris, associate director for school planning in the Office for Catechesis (formerly Catholic Education), said that 43 Catholic elementary schools and all six of the diocese's Catholic high schools are eligible to share in the distribution.
"Elementary schools are eligible to apply for $2,215 each in tuition assistance and $4,140 is available for each high school," Burris said. "These funds are used by our schools to provide need-based tuition assistance for Catholic families."
Burris said that tuition assistance from the endowment fund can have a significant impact, especially for smaller schools.
For instance, St. Isidore School at St. Mary in Farmersville, one of the smallest schools in the diocese, was able to help four - or 10 percent - of the school's 40 students.
"Being a small rural community and school, this program has been really beneficial for us," said Elaine Wagner, principal. "Really, there's so little financial aid out here for scholarships and grants."
Wagner noted that in recent weeks, a local coal mine has closed and "there's 180 more people out of work."
"Families really need help in communities like this," she said.
St. Louis in Nokomis had 75 students last year and eight received tuition assistance from endowment fund distribution, according to Father Christopher Comerford, pastor.
"It's been very helpful for our parish," he said. "The parish already provides tuition assistance to a number of our families. What we've received has enabled us to help at least two or three more families who may be having difficulty paying tuition. This money allows them to make the choice for Catholic education for their children."
Other than the basic requirement to use the funds for tuition assistance, schools have the flexibility to choose how to distribute that assistance among their students. Peg Bodinet, principal of St. Mary in Edwardsville, says the way her school used the funds last year illustrates that point.
"We had some very unique circumstances here," Bodinet said. "We had a family in a real emergency situation. These were long-time parishioners and the help we were able to give them was a Godsend."
Bodinet said that without the fund, the family might not have been able to afford tuition.
"We would have helped them, of course, but it would have been a strain on the school budget," she said.
Bodinet reported that the entire parish pitched in to assist the family in a variety of ways and that this year the family is "on the rebound."
During the 2006-2007 school year, 175 families representing 302 students received assistance making tuition payments to Catholic elementary schools. Twenty-seven families with 34 students in Catholic high schools received help.
Burris said this year's increase of $415 for elementary schools and $1,440 for secondary schools is explained in part by a robust stock market, which increases the income from the endowment. She also noted that there was a slight shift in the percentage of students enrolled in secondary versus elementary schools, which affected how the allotted funds were calculated. During the 2006-2007 school year, the percentage of students in Catholic high schools increased slightly over 2 percent, and the percentage of the total number of students in Catholic elementary schools decreased correspondingly.
Burris said that schools are now in the final stages of the application process. Any unclaimed funds or deferred money will be rolled over to the general fund to be allocated among all the schools in the next academic year.
For more information, contact Burris in the Office for Catechesis at (217) 698-8500 or e-mail her at .