ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. LOUIS Office of the Archbishop
November 8, 2022
Dear Catholic School Families,
During this season of Thanksgiving and gratitude, I remain grateful to you for your commitment to Catholic education. As a product of Catholic education, I know firsthand the profound effect that decision can have on your children.
From the outset of All Things New, we have been discerning the current ministry in our 85 parish based K-8 grade schools that currently educates 19,000 students. As you may be aware, for decades many of our grade schools have struggled to find the balance between accessibility, affordability, and just teacher wages while also dealing with shifting demographics, all while being good stewards of the parish’s overall resources.
Pentecost of 2023 (May 2023) has always been the planned date for the announcement of the revised Archdiocesan parish footprint, along with goals for evangelization and social outreach that will be implemented over the next several years. Obviously, as ministries of our parishes, parish grade schools will be affected by any changes to the parish landscape.
Pastors, faculty, staff and many of our families immediately responded that a May 2023 timeframe for school announcements would not be feasible for several reasons: Principal and teacher contracts that need to be issued, enrollment for your children, scholarship opportunities and parish budgets all need to be in place earlier in the calendar year. In light of this, All Things New was striving to stabilize the school footprint by January of 2023 in the midst of a dynamic parish planning process.
However, in response to the feedback we have received from concerned pastors, principals, teachers and many of you, along with the recommendation of the school planning committee, we understand that we need to adjust our implementation timeline. We believe changes to schools will occur, organically at the parish level, allowing the parish communities themselves to come up with some creative solutions.
The All Things New pastoral planning process will continue to work towards a reimagined parish landscape for Pentecost of 2023. Only after we have discerned what the parish landscape should look like will we discern what our parish schools should look like since they rely heavily on parish support.
Once the new parish landscape is known in May of 2023, the Office of Catholic Education and Formation along with the All Things New implementation team will work with our school communities on what changes could be made for the 2024-2025 school year.
If you have any questions, I would encourage you to contact your pastor or principal. I have also included a short FAQ to address some of the questions you may have.
Please continue to pray that our only desire is to do all things for the greater glory and honor of God, and for the good of His people in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Mitchell T. Rozanski
Archbishop of St. Louis