The past and current realities of Catholic education, including enrollment numbers, operating costs and trends, were presented at six town hall meetings this month.A steering committee formed by area Catholic church pastors has been meeting the past couple of months to discuss the future direction of schools and parishes.The committee is comprised of members from the following parishes — St. Ignatius, Concord Hill; St. John the Baptist-Gildehaus, Villa Ridge; Our Lady of Lourdes, Washington; St. Gertrude, Krakow; St. Ann, Clover Bottom; St. Gerald, Gerald; Holy Family, Port Hudson; St. Francis Borgia, Washington; St. Vincent de Paul, Dutzow; and Immaculate Conception, Augusta.St. Ann, St. Gerald, Holy Family and Immaculate Conception do not have parish schools; the other six do.Steering committee members gave the same Power Point presentation at each meeting, which included detailed charts showing a decline in the number of Catholics in the area, including a drop in Catholic births and baptisms, and a drop in Catholic school-age children from 1,200 full-time students in Catholic schools in 2006 to 863 today.A breakdown of the average tuition costs versus the cost to educate each student, both of which has increased, as well as the net tuition revenue versus school personnel costs, also was presented.The average net tuition revenue per student in the six Catholic schools is $2,860 versus an average operating cost per student of $6,610.Committee members said the “stark realities” cannot be ignored, noting that total enrollment in the six Catholic schools has been trending downward for 10 straight years, while the cost to educate students and the cost of tuition continue to rise.Only one of the six Catholic schools — Our Lady of Lourdes — has been steadily growing and it is near capacity.The rising trend in parish subsidies, meaning the money raised from weekly offertories, auctions and other fundraisers being used to offset the gap, is unsustainable, the committee said.Regional ConceptA map of each parish school also was shown outlining where its students are coming from, with high percentages at many of the schools coming from outside the historical parish boundary.The committee said regional school models have been implemented successfully in other communities in the St. Louis Archdiocese.The “key values” of any regional collaborative effort, committee members said, would be fundamentally Catholic, exceptional quality, affordable and sustainable. They also said maintaining parish/pastor/tradition/heritage would be important.Two models were briefly discussed, including the Federation Model where the individual parish school structure is maintained and finances are separate, but all of the schools would collaborate under a formal agreement with cooperative purchasing power/professional development.Under this type of model, there would be limited shared resources and shared marketing.The committee members said this model only provides a limited financial benefit.A Corporate Model would have all of the benefits of the Federation Model, but would include joint finances and shared administration, relieving the pastors of the day-to-day school operations.This model would provide for consistent tuition, fees and curriculum, along with shared resources, which provides a more significant financial benefit.The steering committee said it will continue to explore regional concepts for applicability here.The Big PictureJoe Boland, committee spokesman, told The Record the presentations clearly show that the demographics are changing with fewer students, a higher cost to educate each student, higher parish subsidies leaving less money for other parish ministries and a higher tuition cost per family.He also said the data shows that families are already traveling some distance to their chosen Catholic school.“We are essentially running regional schools under the old parish structure,” he said.Boland estimates about 70 people turned out for the meeting at St. Ignatius and 85 to 90 at St. Vincent. The other presentations held at Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Francis Borgia, St. John the Baptist and St. Gertrude averaged about 120-130 people.“I think it was a good turnout, but we didn’t see as many younger families as we hoped,” he said. “The presentation is available on each parish’s website so we hope people will take the time to view it.”Boland said meetings overall went very well and people were mostly receptive.“I do think people were happy to get the information and grateful they could give some input,” he said.Work TogetherBoland said he thinks many parishioners at the different churches are “cautiously optimistic” and feel it’s time that everyone work together to keep Catholic education strong in the area.“I do think people are a little nervous about change and that’s one of the reasons we held the meetings,” he said. “We want to reassure people that nothing is happening overnight, but we have to start talking about different options.”Boland stressed that no decisions have been made and there are no plans to implement any changes for the 2018-19 school year.“We will try and keep each school open as long as possible and we want to make any change work for everyone, but we do need a plan for the future . . . a safety net if there is a parish school that is struggling to stay open,” he said.At the end of each meeting, people could write down questions, many of which the committee answered that night. All of the questions will be considered by the committee in the coming weeks, Boland told The Record.Next StepBoland said the committee hopes to have a recommendation to present to the parish pastors in July. The pastors and the archbishop will ultimately decide the path forward, he said.Asked if the recommended plan will be presented to each parish and if additional town hall meetings are planned, Boland said that’s likely, but the steering committee has not met as a group since the presentations were given last week.“We meet again Thursday night and I’m sure we will be discussing all of that,” he said. “We want to be as transparent as possible.”The steering committee will meet every other week until a final recommendation is made.St. Louis Catholic Archdiocese