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Despite dozens of closures in recent decades, there are still too many parochial schools for the number of children to fill them. The “All Things New� initiative will produce a “dramatic impact on the current blueprint� of the Archdiocese’s 178 parishes and 100 schools, said the Rev. Chris Martin, who is helping to lead the restructuring plan.

The ultimate goal is “an affordable Catholic education accessible to everyone in the archdiocese that wants to choose it, that also pays teachers a living wage,� Martin said.

The Catholic school system is a “broken model� that depends on the tithing of Baby Boomers to educate the children of millennials. Older parishioners are subsidizing tuition scholarships at the expense of other ministries. And the starting teacher salary is a little more than $30,000, a social justice problem for the church, Martin said.

Parishioners have been urged to fill out a 75-question survey this month about their relationship to their church and school community. An additional survey for school families will be released soon to help guide the changes to be announced in May 2023.

“I think what they’re doing with the survey, they’re trying to figure out where they’re going to have the biggest fight on their hands,â€� said Colette Edson, who was on an Archdiocese school committee that formed in 2013 and led to the closures of five parish schools in south ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ over the last decade.

Parishes have held town hall meetings this month leaving anxious parents with more questions than answers about the future of their schools.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, the Catholic church in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ served to lift immigrant communities out of poverty. The success of that mission has also been the downfall — Catholic families moved into the middle class and moved west to the suburbs.

Elementary school enrollment in archdiocese schools has dropped from more than 40,000 in 2000 to around 20,000 this year. Of the 10 largest schools, four are in St. Charles County and only one, St. Gabriel the Archangel, is in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city.

There are 10 Catholic grade schools left in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city, down from dozens in the 1970s. Just one — ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Catholic Academy — is north of Delmar Boulevard, following the 2020 closure of Most Holy Trinity.

Every parish and school will be affected by the reorganization in some way, church leaders said. One potential model for consolidation is South City Catholic Academy, which formed in 2017 with the merger of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Joan of Arc schools. In 2012, four ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County Catholic parishes combined their schools and created one system, Holy Cross Academy, with separate grades at each campus.

The tension for church leaders lies in balancing the original mission of bringing Catholic education to the poor while attracting suburban families who are turned off by rising tuition prices.

Kirsten Tidwell’s Catholic high school, Gateway Academy in Chesterfield, closed in 2009 because of low enrollment. For their 10-year reunion a few years ago, Tidwell and her classmates gathered on the school’s soccer field to reminisce.

“The hardest part is the loss of community to go back to,� she said. “I miss that aspect of going back and visiting teachers. Those teachers feel like your family, they make such an impact on your life.�

Tidwell now teaches at a charter school in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ and will likely send her young children to Kirkwood public schools.

“I don’t think I would send my kids to private Catholic school. It’s become this thing where it’s almost like this elite society,� she said.

While a Catholic grade school education runs $5,000 to $7,000 a year, tuition rises above $20,000 for several high schools. Priory tops the list at $25,990. Priory and other private Catholic high schools will not be directly affected by the reorganization plan, but the handful of archdiocesan high schools may be at risk.

Staci Lindsey, a parishioner at St. Anthony of Padua in Dutchtown, said losing St. Mary’s High School would be devastating to the neighborhood, which rallied around the school’s state football championship team last fall.

Tuition at the all-boys school is $11,000 and most students receive scholarships.

“St. Mary’s has really made a pivot for their student population to look more like the growing neighborhood population. It’s really energizing and exciting to see that momentum,� Lindsey said. “How else do you evangelize if not planting your roots in areas where people are not Catholic? We would like to see a progressive view of the future that is more inclusive, to really seed the diversity of views and backgrounds that are engaged with the church.�

Some bright spots appear in the data, including a small rise in Catholic elementary school enrollment for the first time in 32 years. There are 150 more students in archdiocesan schools this year, likely a blip caused by virtual learning in public schools during the pandemic, said John Schwob, director of pastoral planning for the archdiocese.

Whatever the reorganization holds, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ will likely still have one of the largest Catholic school systems in the country per capita. Nearly 40% of Catholic schoolchildren here attend parochial schools, three times the national average.

“People put their heart and soul into their parish and their school,� Schwob said.