Feds must help private schools

We’ve examined the dire COVID-19created scenario of financially strapped public schools dealing with the added burden of providing essentially two education systems in the next school year.

Lost in that discussion is the potentially disastrous impact the coronavirus will have on parochial and other private schools, which educate a significant number of the commonwealth’s students.

It’s not lost on Thomas Carroll, the superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Boston. He’s warned that private religious education could be on the verge of its biggest collapse in recent memory, unless Congress earmarks sufficient funds to keep it afloat.

The $3 trillion CARES Act reportedly did provide for an equitable distribution of funds to non-public education institutions, but the more recent relief bill proposed by House Democrats apparently doesn’t include that provision.

The archdiocese has already announced that 10% of its schools have closed.

The current climate certainly puts financial stress on a multitude of private Catholic schools, including St. Bernard’s High School.

It was just a little over a year ago when the Fitchburg-based school, thanks to a communitywide effort, was rescued from the brink of closure after being informed by Diocesan management that it would likely be shuttered that summer.

A new leadership team embraced the task or returning St. Bernard’s to financial solvency. In just eight months, the school raised over $1 million, and created a new, independent governance model free of Diocesan control.

But for St. Bernard’s and other schools, it comes down to simple economics. Parents who’ve lost their jobs or are underemployed may not be able to afford the tuition.

And whose fault is that? Carroll maintains it’s due to the government’s decision to shut down much of the economy. We also believe the federal government should fix the problem its policies helped cause.

Funding private/parochial schools would be short money compared to the costs involved with adding tens of thousands of students nationwide to overwhelmed public-school systems.