St. Mark's: Rumors are false; school is not closing

Jessica Bies , Jessica Bies | The News Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Low enrollment won't change St. Mark's spirit St. Mark's High School Principal Mayhan is not losing hope in the quality of education offered at his Catholic school considering the decreased trend in enrollment.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify enrollment numbers at St. Elizabeth High School.

With rumors of its imminent closure scaring off prospective students, leaders at St. Mark's High School said despite plummeting enrollment it has every intention of keeping its doors open for "generations to come."

In its heyday, St. Mark's had 1,600 students. This year, it had 556.

Those figures mirror a national trend in Catholic education. Fewer and fewer families are opting for the schools, in many cases leading to the closure of community landmarks and educational institutions.

In Delaware, there are 22 Catholic elementary and high schools, according to the Department of Education. Since 1995, their total enrollment has decreased by nearly 42 percent.

St. Mark's, the only high school in the Wilmington area administered by the diocese, has seen the most dramatic losses, with enrollment down nearly 65 percent.

The school has been a part of the community since 1969, according to its website. And Principal Richard Bayhan hopes it will continue to be for at least another 50 years.

But he said the St. Mark's of the future will be different — smaller, more focused, less expansive in scope.

"It is the bishop's will, as well as mine personally and everyone's in between, that this school remains here for generations yet to come," Bayhan said. "But we need to show that thread of St. Mark's as a smaller school.

"Our biggest competition is what we used to be. Quite frankly, a really large Catholic school, that's no longer the norm."

Three decades of change

Anne, who did not want her last name used in this story because one of her children still attends St. Mark's, graduated from St. Mark's in 1986. She remembers the school having classes of nearly 400 students and said she graduated from a class of more than 300.

At the time, tuition was about $1,300 a year — today it is $13,200.

"I don't understand why they keep raising tuition," Anne said.

Anne used to teach at a Catholic school herself but had to quit and find a higher-paying one at a public school so she could afford to send her youngest child to St. Mark's.

Her two older children also attended the school. From the time of their initial enrollment to now, tuition has increased between $5,000 and $6,000. The school also has eliminated several of its freshman sports teams, and "they had to have a combined junior-senior prom this year because the senior class was too small."

Bayhan confirmed that the school has reduced extracurricular activities largely because of its falling enrollment. Tuition has gone up at what Bayhan considered a fairly typical rate, 2 to 2.5 percent a year and 5 percent this year.

The story behind rising tuition rates at Catholic schools is a fairly complex one, experts say, and in many ways is tied to enrollment trends.

Chuck Zech, faculty director of the Center for Church Management and Business Ethics at Villanova University, said historically Catholic schools were known for being relatively cheap. For one, even as recently as 25 years ago, Catholic schools were staffed primarily by nuns, who were paid little to nothing for their services.

"Today we don't have those nuns so we're staffing those schools with lay people who are still scandalously underpaid but cost more overall," Zech said.

Another factor is facility costs. According to Zech, half of the parishes and Catholic schools were built before 1950 and a third before 1930.

"And of course, the maintenance costs on a 90-, 80-, 50-year-old building are significant," he said.

Those additional costs have led to tuition increases, which in turn have led to lower enrollment, Zech said. With the emergence of charter schools, which are free, Catholic schools have come up against stiff competition for students and in many cases lose out to schools that can offer a wider range of services without having to charge for them.

Other factors have to do with the Catholic Church itself, which has gone through its own series of challenges in recent decades.

The number of Catholic marriages has decreased significantly over the past 30 years though the overall Catholic population is growing, Zech said. The number of children baptized in the Catholic Church has gone down by 42 percent.

That not only translates into a smaller pool of potential applicants for Catholic schools but points to what Zech referred to as the "alienation" of young parents from the Catholic Church over issues like gay marriage, gender equality and the reproductive rights of women.

A national trend

St. Mark's is far from the only school plagued by these issues. Zech said nationwide enrollment at Catholic schools has decreased 47 percent over the past 30 years, while high school enrollment has gone down 34 percent.

In Delaware, St. Elizabeth School, which is operated by St. Elizabeth's Parish, is also facing enrollment loss.

In 2012, St. Elizabeth Elementary had 359 students, according to DOE records. Today, it has 158. St. Elizabeth High School has bounced between 247 and 406 students for the past several years, according to numbers reported by the school to the Department of Education.

"I'm not sure we're struggling," Head of School Shirley Bounds said. "I think we're just making some adjustments."

Among those adjustments has been combining the elementary and high schools into one, she said, to better share resources and staff. The elementary school also has gone from two classes in each grade to one.

The Rev. Norman Carroll, pastor of St. Elizabeth's Church, said the consolidation was administrative more than anything else but did acknowledge enrollment woes. He thought some of the decreases may be linked to the issues Zech brought up — young families are less connected to the parish and, henceforth, less likely to send their kids to a parish school.

"It’s about wanting to be part of a community, which I think is hard to teach people until they’ve experienced it," he said.

Another parish school, All Saints, has lost 276 students. St. Anthony of Padua Grade School is down 122.

Louis De Angelo, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Wilmington, said when Catholic schools were first founded there weren't charter schools to contend with.

"Certainly one of the things that impact declining enrollment at Catholic schools would be the alternatives available to parents that were not as readily available 20, or even 15, years ago," he said. "And some of those choices might be the best for their children because, really, they know their children best."

He said families likely will not pay to go to Catholic school unless it really is a priority for them. They have to really "walk the talk," he said, and make a conscious choice to send their kids to a school centered on their religious values.

"Unfortunately, they have to sacrifice," he said. "Because the schools don't have much financial aid to offer."

Finances tight

Parish schools like St. Elizabeth and diocesan schools like St. Mark's rely primarily on donations for financial assistance, though the Diocese of Wilmington also has a fund locked in for tuition assistance and collects money from an offering every September.

Unfortunately, De Angelo said, the amount of assistance available from the diocese is about $600,000 while the demonstrated need of students is more than $3.5 million.

Zech said although individual dioceses were once capable of contributing more to Catholic education, a recent spate of sex abuse settlements — like one for $77.4 million in Wilmington in 2011 — has left them cash-strapped.

"There's no safety net," he said, adding that many diocesan high schools have failed for that very reason.

Also, "the sex abuse scandal is one of the causes in the decline in Catholic marriage," he said. "Payments to the victims put a tremendous (financial) burden on the dioceses.

Bayhan, at St. Mark's, said the school is preparing to hire its first marketing and communications staffer — the hire comes after the layoff of other staff to offset drops in enrollment.

Local success stories

The area's most successful Catholic schools — Archmere, Salesianum and Ursuline — excel at marketing and suffer fewer enrollment problems. They are also considered "private" and are not administered by the diocese. Their staff are independently appointed unlike Bayhan, who was appointed to St. Mark's by Bishop Francis Malooly.

Enrollment at Salesinaum has grown over the past few years, from 964 to 1,047 students. Archmere's enrollment is also slightly up while Ursuline's has bounced between about 370 and 460.

Brendan Kennealey, president of Salesianum School, said being successful is less about keeping tuition down and more about making sure the school is offering what it needs to attract students.

"I think for parents that are going to invest their hard-earned money in an education, it's all about the value proposition that the school offers," he said. "I think in some ways, there's a lot of schools that can do academics well ... families want more. They want strong values, strong faith, a place where students understand they are part of something larger than themselves."

“I think understanding the value proposition is a big one, and Catholic schools have transitioned in the last 50 years from being largely staffed by nuns and priests to being staffed by lay people, which has translated into a very different financial model.”

"So as tuitions go up, and parents have changed, they’re shopping more.”

Some St. Mark's alumni say the "value proposition" at St. Mark's has gone down and that the school is charging too much for too little. They were particularly upset about the cuts to athletics and other extracurriculars.

They also questioned why the school didn't do a better job engaging alumni to raise funds.

But many defended the school and continue to send their kids there – or would if they could afford to.

"All four of my sons have attended St. Mark's — three graduated and the youngest will be a senior this year," Alice Hoffman said. "Neither my husband nor I are from Wilmington so we have no 'loyalty' to any school — like so many people seem to have. We allowed all of our sons to choose where they wanted to go to high school. They looked at St. Mark's, Salesianum, CSW (Charter School of Wilmington) and Concord. All chose to attend St. Mark's."

Hoffman said it's been a financial sacrifice to send her sons there, but that the environment at St. Mark's and the quality of its academics have made that seem insignificant.

"All three of my older sons have had successful and easy transitions to college — all because of their excellent preparation by St. Marks," she said. It has been so worth the sacrifices that we made. My husband and I say that we don't own a beach house because that money went to St. Mark's High School and St. Mary Magdalen School — and we wouldn't have it any other way."

Deb Hartwick, another parent, said her son also chose St. Mark's himself.

"I think there are many excellent options for schooling in Delaware, and similar to a college search, each family finds the right fit for their child," she said. "I understand that cost can be prohibitive, but many private schools offer need-based aid, and I think it would be worth contacting any school to find out what might be available. However, I am fully aware that our family is fortunate to be able to make the choice to send our children to private high school."

Her son, Alex, said from the start he had a good feeling about St. Mark's. He said he's made deep bonds with his teachers and that they have given him the will to succeed.

"The entire day I spent there shadowing in eighth grade, the motto driven home to me was 'This is home,'" he said. "At first I thought it was a silly administration idea, but then I realized it was in the hearts of every student who attends St. Mark’s.

"It truly is a home-away-from-home. Our new motto is 'ATP: All Things Possible' and that is shown through our strong community of faith, athletics and determination in education. We all care about each other.”

Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.