Can Catholic Schools Survive?

An article in the Rochester City Newspaper questions the long term viability of even the remaining 11 schools in the Diocesan school system. It's interesting reading.

Click here for the article

Our Documents Are Online...

Check out the "Important Documents" link on the left hand side of the page (below the "Blog Archive"). There are links to the meeting minutes from the two group meetings, along with the marketing PowerPoint presentation put together by the R.I.T. students. They are there in their native Microsoft formats. I hope to have them up in Adobe Acrobat format (PDF) soon, so those without the Microsoft Suite can view them also.

*** UPDATE: PDFs are now uploaded. Thanks to Jim Stack! ***

A Quick, Unscientific Poll.

I added a quick poll to the bottom of the page on the left. After reading the minutes from Tuesday's meeting I saw the idea of current students paying a higher tuition for a year or two to keep the school in the black while the student population is increasing. So I thought that I would throw that idea out and see what the masses think. Scroll down and give you opinion to our unscientific poll.

Meeting Tonight!

Tonight, Tuesday January 29th, there will be a School Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting in the teachers lounge. ALL are invited to attend. Please bring your ideas after digesting last weeks' meeting. Let's keep the momentum going!

Bishop's letter in the Rochester D&C...

Bishop Matthew Clark was a guest essayist in the Rochester D&C yesterday, with an article entitled "Closing 13 schools is the way to save the others, cut tuition".

Read the article here.

Monroe County Catholic Schools Open House Schedule..

The schedule for elementary school open houses is on the Diocesan web page.

No need to go looking, here is a link

Catholic Alternatives

Since most of the information we have and will continue to receive will be from the Diocese and about other Diocesan Schools, I thought I would try to collect up some information on the non-diocesan schools.

Archangel School: Open houses will be held at Archangel School, 95 Stanton Lane, Irondequoit, from 10 a.m. to noon, Tuesday 2/7 and Thursday 2/9, as well as from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Feb. 7. For more information, call the school at (585) 426-5990. I can't find a website for the school, but there is a D&C guest essay here.

Nazareth Hall Elementary: There are "prospective family" meetings February 7th (7:00 PM)and 12th (6:00 PM). For more information, see their website.

One Heart, One Voice

You may have seen Andrea Colaruotolo O'Neill, a parent from Saint John's of Rochester in Fairport, on the news over the last week. Well, Andrea is starting to organize a single protest place for all displaced families to work together. A website with a petition, a rally, a press conference, a vigil, a massive prayer service, a meeting at the convention center, etc.

Use the Comments link below to post any ideas you may have.

(By the way, click here for one of Andrea's interviews)

SMM Teachers featured in article about job loss

Channel 10 did a story about the 197 teachers who will be out of jobs come June. The article prominently features Saint Margaret Mary School Teachers Joanne Knorr and Tricia Sadler.

Click here for the story

What do you want here?

So far, I have been consolidating media reports and such that I can find from around the web into this blog.

What else do you want to do here? Do we want to use this as a sounding board for ideas for our plan to the Diocese? Want to post minutes from our meetings? In addition, I can add Google Ads down the right side of this blog to try to raise a little money. Click the Comments link below and let me know what you think. The more input and feedback we can get here, the better tool we can make this for everyone.