This week we celebrate National Catholic Schools Week as a parish with a school. The faith and sacrifice of our parish has provided Catholic faith based education to students in the Redford community for 65 years. This is a blessing that we do not take for granted. Catholic Education is needed to help provide a beacon of Christ’s light in a world that is getting to be more confusing and challenging for our children every single day.

The theme of Catholic Schools Week 2017 is “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service.”

As we celebrate Catholic Schools Week I would like to share some Catholic School facts that I gathered from a variety of online sites.

Research on Catholic schools shows:

· Overall academic achievement is higher (Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982; Sander, 1996)

· The student/teacher ratio in Catholic schools is 14:1.(NCEA 2015)

· 99% of students who attend Catholic high school graduate. Of those, 88% attend 4-year colleges.

With attendance in any Catholic school for any period of time, students are:

· 4x’s more likely to be attending church at the age of 45

· 3x’s more likely to be confirmed

· 2x’s more likely to be married in Church (research noted by Sr. M. Paul McCaughey, O.P., Back to School Kick-Off, 2009) 

Catholic school graduates are:

· more likely to vote (Dee, 2005)

· more likely to earn higher wages (Neal, 1997)

· more civically engaged, more committed to service as adults  (Campbell, 2001; Wolf, Greene,  Kleitz,& Thalhammer, 2001)

· Currently, 6 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices went to Catholic school. (Boston.com)

Affordability:

· Catholic schools provide over 20.5 billion dollars a year in savings for the nation. (NCEA)

· St. Valentine School tuition cost is BELOW the actual cost per pupil

· The mean cost per pupil at Catholic schools is $5,436; the national per pupil average is $10,792). (NCEA; National Center for Education Statistics) St. Valentine School is more than $1,500 below the national average for in parish tuition.

· Catholic families can apply for tuition assistance from the Archdiocese for tuition assistance ($800 for K-12 and $500 for 9-12)

· St. Valentine School also provides tuition assistance to families with financial need

Cardinal Dolan of New York and former President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said in his blog: “There is no more tried-and-true way of passing on our Catholic faith to our kids than by sacrificing to put them in a Catholic school. Data proves they persevere in the faith at higher rates, pray better, are more faithful to Sunday Mass, live gospel values, are more generous to their parish, even have happier marriages, volunteer more, and transmit the faith to their own children, than those not in a Catholic school.”

May God Bless St. Valentine and all Catholic Schools. Please keep St. Valentine Catholic School in your daily prayers.

Mrs. Rachel Damuth
Principal