As reported in last week’s Catholic Review, we are moving full speed ahead with a process for parish planning in the Archdiocese. Though it will be vastly different from the process undertaken for the reorganization of Catholic schools, it may have many asking where we are with the implementation of the schools plan and, most importantly, “is it working?”
With nearly 50 percent of the Implementation Plan’s 714 action items completed and encouraging new enrollment data in hand, early indicators suggest the answer is “yes!”
Last week, our Archdiocesan School Board – itself an outgrowth of the Strategic Plan for Catholic Schools – received an update from Dr. Barbara McGraw Edmondson, Superintendent of Catholic Schools. She reported that while the long-standing trend of enrollment decline has continued, the decrease (approximately four percent) was the smallest in four years and was 50 percent of last year’s drop.
While this news is good and a hopeful sign that the painful and careful steps we took to get here are working, we are not satisfied. We can do better and we must do better. But we knew from the outset that we could not turn the schools ship around overnight and, at the halfway point of implementation, the Strategic Plan appears to be on the money.
Other updates to emerge at last week’s Board meeting include:
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