Area Private Schools Keeping Enrollment Up This Fall

Despite the lingering effects of one of the nation’s worst economic downturns, private and parochial schools from Cape Cod to Boston anticipate strong enrollment this fall.

The schools say that chief among the reasons for their success is academic excellence, fostered largely by small class sizes, values-based education and modern learning facilities. Enrollment will increase or stay historically high at a number of schools recently surveyed by Patch, even as the gap between the cost of religious and independent institutions remains wide.

At a time when a major export of Cape Cod is families with school age children, Pope John Paul II High School in Hyannis is growing. 

When the school opened its doors in 2007, 400 students were leaving the Cape every day to attend parochial school, said Al Catelli, director of admissions and director of advancements. Most of them attended Bishop Stang High School in Dartmouth or Sacred Heart in Kingston, with a handful traveling as far as Notre Dame and Boston College High in Boston.

“When you added up the number of children sent off Cape to Catholic high schools, it came up short of 400,” said Catelli of the decision to start a parochial high school. “That is the quantifiable number. The unquantifiable number was how many families would want to send their kids to a Catholic school, but not at the expense of putting their kids in a car or bus for an hour and a half each way.”

This past June, Pope John Paul II High School in Hyannis graduated 27 students. The class of 2011 is the first class to have matriculated all four years at the only Catholic high school on Cape Cod.  The school has added one new class a year.

This September’s freshman class will have 100 students.

For Catelli, Pope John Paul II’s success is a combination of product, supply and demand.

“How many 8th graders are there on Cape Cod? Literally, there are a few thousand 8th grade students and we are looking for 125 a year,” Catelli said.

“If we were looking for 400, 500 or 600 each year, it would be a different story. The declining student population on the Cape is a piece of the puzzle. We separate ourselves from a majority of the schools because of our academic rigor and religious values. We can find 125 students a year with a declining family population.”

When a former school building became available in the Town of Barnstable, complete with playing fields and a 500-seat auditorium, the parent group behind Pope John Paul II raised the money to purchase the building and began the renovations.  

“With the fall 2011 enrollment being somewhere between 230 to 240 students, there has been a tremendous growth spurt each year, for a number of years, for any number of reasons,” Catelli said. “Part of it is families are interested and want the school to make it. A  big part of it is they see the school is succeeding and want to be a part of it.”

Two well-known South Shore schools – Notre Dame in Hingham and  in Braintree – will see comparably high enrollment come September. They have unique missions: one an all-girls Catholic school, the other a coed college prep institution, yet both expect attendance to remain robust for similar reasons, representatives of the schools said.

In the fall of 2006, Notre Dame built a new academic wing. 

“Since that time, despite the challenging economy, our enrollment numbers have remained strong at nearly 600 young women in grades 9 - 12," director of communications Katie Miller said in an email.

Thayer’s enrollment is at or slightly above last year’s number, according to admissions director Jon White. 

Slightly less than 700 students will attend the school during the 2011-2012 academic year; 220 in Thayer’s middle school and 473 in the upper level. The 34-acre campus has also added new buildings recently, including a $17-million, 540-seat performing arts center completed in 2008 and several classroom laboratory renovations over the past few years.

“Both the quantity and quality of applications to Thayer have been especially strong, and we anticipate one of the highest opening day enrollments in the Academy's history,” White said in a statement. “We attribute this to the Academy's strong academic reputation, its distinctively affirming school culture, excellent and extensive extra-curricular programs, and impressive facilities."

At Roxbury Latin in West Roxbury, limited seats – school officials said they try to keep enrollment under 300 – means a highly competitive admissions process. Yet despite the relatively expensive annual cost of $22,300, Roxbury Latin, like many schools Patch surveyed, is filled with a diverse body of students thanks to generous financial aid.

“We admit students regardless of what they can pay, and then submit those names to the financial aid officer to determine how much aid they need,” headmaster Kerry Brennan told Patch last year. “We don't have what's called the barbell effect, a situation in which there are plenty of ‘full pay’ students and a smattering who can pay nothing at all. Rather, some people need the whole [$22,300], and we offer that, or there is someone who needs $3,000 - they receive that.”

A gap persists between Catholic and independent school tuition, and even among parochial schools, but increases are fairly consistent, ranging from a little under 2 percent per year to 5 percent at the schools Patch surveyed. Notre Dame declined to provide its amount of increase, though it said tuition this coming year will be $15,975. Pope John Paul II High School, by comparison, charges $8,300 and has increased its costs slightly each year.

Tuition at Thayer Academy has risen on average 4.6 percent over the last three years, and will go up 5 percent this year, to $35,175. Like Roxbury Latin, Thayer awards financial aid as needed. Thirty-three percent of students will receive it this year, for a total of $4.8 million. 

Forty percent of Roxbury Latin students receive financial aid, part of a need-blind admissions process that has kept enrollment at or near its target as funding for public schools has taken a hit. 

“Other factors that attract families to us are the academic and ethical training we provide for boys,” Director of Admissions Thomas Guden said in an email. "We tell each boy we care most about his character and what kind of person he is. Families like the fact that their boys will be known and loved at Roxbury Latin. They receive a tremendous amount of individual attention.”

David Ertischek, Tony Catinella and Margaret Carroll-Bergman contributed reporting.