Enrollment is up in Catholic schools — especially in earliest grades, office reports

The number of students in kindergarten to grade eight at St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Roseville has jumped by more than 50 this year, and many of them didn’t enroll until the end of August. That meant teachers scrambled to order new textbooks and Chromebooks to meet students’ needs, said Principal Sean Slaikeu, but it’s been a welcome challenge. He capped classroom size at 18 due to COVID-19 precautions. There’s now a waiting list for grades three and six.

“It’s been awesome,” he said of the enrollment boost, which brought its K-8 student body to 135, compared with 78 students at the same time last year. It would be easy to attribute the uptick solely to COVID-19 and his school’s in-person instruction, when other schools are doing distance-learning or hybrid learning, he said. But he thinks the school has attracted families with its reputation for quality education.

“A lot of families that have joined us this year have connections to other families in the school,” said Slaikeu, who is in his fifth year as St. Rose’s principal. “It’s the continuous efforts that we’ve put in as a school staff and what we did last year with remote learning. … What we’re hearing is that COVID has impacted people looking for schools with smaller class sizes, and we committed to being open. But the things that we’ve been doing for the past many years have put us in the position for this.”

Enrollment is up at Catholic schools across the archdiocese, according to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for the Mission of Catholic Education. The overall increase is the first in recent history for Catholic schools in the archdiocese’s 12-county area, the office said.

Office leaders observed the 4.4% increase through its annual Archdiocesan Schools Report, which the office uses to collect school data in October each year. The 91 elementary and high schools reported a total of 26,106 students enrolled in kindergarten to grade 12 at the beginning of the 2020-21 academic year — up 1,096 from the year before.

In an Oct. 26 letter to Catholic school leaders with an “initial enrollment snapshot,” office leaders noted that “enrollment by grade level is particularly meaningful.” Kindergarten enrollment has increased from last year by almost 400 students, a nearly 40% boost. First- and second-grade enrollment both report an increase of more than 200 students, resulting in an increase of more than 10%. Combined, the enrollment of those three grades account for nearly 80% of the total enrollment growth, office leaders said.

They said “it is a great blessing to have reversed a steady trend of decreasing enrollment across the K-12 system of Catholic schools of the Archdiocese.” Enrollment in grades K-12 has steadily declined in recent years. Total enrollment in 2016-17 was 26,282, and it has fallen by several hundred in each subsequent year prior to this year.

A graph of enrollment in the previous five years shared with the letter shows a slight decrease in grades six and seven this year over last year, but total enrollment is up in both categories of grades kindergarten to eight and nine to 12. However, enrollment varies by school, and not all schools experienced an increase in their students. Some experienced continued enrollment decline.

Jason Slattery, director of Catholic schools in the archdiocese, said that he can’t speculate to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the numbers, or how this year’s boost in enrollment may affect future years. Most Catholic schools in the archdiocese returned to in-person learning, while many public schools in the area did not.

“We did see an increase in the number of families who were seeking the essential service of education and a partner in the education of their children,” Slattery said. “Those families have clearly connected with Catholic schools who remain committed, following COVID preparedness plans, to providing in-person learning for students.”

Alison Dahlman, principal of St. Peter Catholic School in North St. Paul, said that her school’s enrollment for grades kindergarten to eight has held steady this year. What is unusual, she said, is that the school has had more inquiries and student transfers after the start of the year than in years past.

“In talking with these families, they’re either growing very weary of the hybrid model they signed up for and it’s just not working, or their (public school) district is going from hybrid to distance (learning) and they just don’t want to do that, or there’s frustration with whatever’s happening — be it hybrid, be it distance — with their school,” she said.

Some families who were planning to enroll but chose not to because of concerns about starting at a new school during the pandemic have since changed their minds, Dahlman said. Overall, St. Peter has welcomed about 17 new families whose children are not at typical entry-point grades such as preschool or kindergarten, she said.

Like St. Rose of Lima, St. Peter has capped classroom sizes instead of overfilling them, which Dahlman said she might have done in previous years. That’s meant turning some potential students away in some grades, she said. The elementary grades are at capacity, she said, while the middle school grades continue to have openings.

Dahlman said there’s a big question around whether students who have joined Catholic schools this year because they’ve offered an in-person learning option will stick with Catholic schools post-pandemic. Catholic schools now have to figure out how to show those families their value, even as they can’t offer the regular community building that would deepen families’ connection to the school.

“How can our Catholic culture actually lead to some conversion of wanting to stay? That’s the huge task that we all have upon us, so that next year — or whenever — we don’t see that gain of 1,000 go to a loss of 600, and have this swing,” she said of schools across the archdiocese. “Because what we have to offer is unique and distinct compared to what they (students) were receiving.”