Detroit — As more families tighten their belts, they contemplate the necessities and the luxuries within their dwindling or stagnant budget. And all too often, a Catholic education becomes a luxury.

The Archdiocese of Detroit would like to change that.

“The archbishop is very much committed to seeing our schools become even more vibrant, and continue to grow,” said Brian Dougherty, Ph.D., superintendent of archdiocesan schools. “The charge he has given me is to shore up our schools so they are here for the next millennium, and to provide a Catholic education for anyone who seeks it.”

An experienced administrator in both private and public schools, Dougherty has served as a superintendent for three public school districts, in both his native Pennsylvania and in Michigan. In his current role, he and his team guide and foster the nearly 100 urban, suburban and rural schools of the archdiocese.

“We need to become, first and foremost, a school district that has the strength of a 30,000-student district with 91 schools. That means understanding and utilizing the benefits of working together and not independently,” Dougherty said during an interview in late September.

For example, harnessing the collective purchasing power of the archdiocese’s schools can help with cost containment, he said. Last year, the archdiocese launched a pilot program to purchase bulk supplies from Staples and OfficeMax.

“The nine schools that used it were able to save thousands of dollars,” Dougherty said. “We hope others will come on board.”

In addition to savings on supplies, the program also places 1.5 percent of what was spent into the archdiocese’s tuition assistance fund, Dougherty added.

Similar joint purchasing could also reduce the cost of textbooks for the archdiocese, but negotiating such volume discounts requires a shared curriculum, which is an ongoing project for the archdiocese. Associate Superintendent Melissa Lipsmeier has been charged with spearheading the alignment of the archdiocese’s curriculum, with input from schools an integral part of the process.

“We don’t want a top-down curriculum; we need the input of our current teachers, to help ensure that each year’s curriculum build on the previous one, and flows to the next level,” Dougherty said.

Working together is a common theme in both short and long-term planning, he added.

“Our school principals agree that their competition is not other Catholic schools,” he explained. “We need to take that a step further. You have got to spend time to figure out a prospective family’s needs, and be willing to offer up another Catholic school if it better meets them.

“If they know that your school is not the right fit for your child, it is incumbent upon all of us to know the strengths of the Catholic schools around us, so we can become a referral service for them, and for them to us. We have to support one another.”

Many local Catholic schools already work well collaboratively, Dougherty said. He recalled his own experience in looking for a Catholic school for his daughters after his family first moved to the Detroit area.

“One of the single-sex schools we went to was quite open,” he recalled. “They said ‘We don’t know if we are what you are looking for, but here are the other single sex-schools in the area.’ Bravo!”

Still, Dougherty said he is troubled by the number of parents choosing to opt out of Catholic schools in recent years. Middle school appears to be the time of the most transition, as nearly half of students leave after elementary school and never return; on the flip side, half of students attending area Catholic high schools are new to Catholic education.

The archdiocese offers several high school scholarships only available to students who have attended Catholic grade schools, but “they seem to be a well-kept secret,” Dougherty said. Publicizing them more robustly could help combat the problem of students leaving early, he added.

The district hopes eventually to offer other discounts and financial aid for families who make long-term commitments to Catholic education.

“I want to have a unified, transferrable menu of deductions for parents that rewards them for making the decision to give their children a Catholic education,” Dougherty said.

And the vision isn’t just limited to K-12 education; last year, the archdiocese partnered with the University of Detroit-Mercy to offer college scholarships to students who attend kindergarten through high school at a local Catholic institution. Dougherty said he hopes to similarly partner with other Catholic universities as well.

But financial aid isn’t limited to such programs. Dougherty noted that apart from archdiocesan-sponsored aid, a record number of scholarships are offered to local Catholic scholars each year.

“Last year, $150 million in scholarships were offered to our graduates; while some seniors received multiple offers and others none, it is still an incredible accomplishment,” Dougherty explained.

Overall, the superintendent said, “we believe children benefit from a lifetime of Catholic education.”

---

Kathleen Kozlowski Okray is a freelance writer based in Commerce Township.