Money comes from the diocese's $51 million Heritage Campaign Endowment. Most will go toward financial aid.
View full sizeBlessed Sacrament School second-grader Sanaa Snagg collects her supplies. Blessed Sacrament and the other Catholic schools in the Syracuse diocese opened today for the school year.
Syracuse, NY -- The Syracuse Catholic diocese will spend $590,000 on additional scholarships, new programs and technology upgrades in its 24 schools in Central New York.
The money comes from the diocese’s $51 million Heritage Campaign Endowment. The biggest chunk of that money — $225,000 — will go toward financial aid, with another $130,000 for marketing and development and $90,000 for program enhancement.
Catholic schools in the diocese opened this morning for the new school year.
"In a time when our public school counterparts are struggling to keep programs and in a time when education budgets are being slashed, we are happy to announce that we are able to add programs, increase financial aid to families in need and maintain our high standard of excellence in our 24 schools," Catholic school Superintendent Christopher Mominey said in prepared remarks to open the school year.
The diocese is spending $85,000 on a software program, available through MyStudentsProgress.com, which will be used by students, teachers and parents for homework and class assignments, test grades and other information.
Mominey and Bishop Robert J. Cunningham spoke briefly at a news conference this morning at Bishop Ludden Junior Senior High School.
The diocese has closed or merged 10 schools in the past decade, but Cunningham said schools remain "a very important priority for the diocese." He praised public schools for their educational program and said Catholic schools take education a step further.
"What we provide, we believe, is an extra ingredient," he said. "We do the same thing that public schools do in providing an excellent academic background, but we add to that what Catholic education is all about, Jesus Christ."
Cunningham said Catholic schools also save tax dollars. The per-pupil cost is lower in Catholic schools than public schools, he said.
The Syracuse diocese covers Onondaga, Oswego, Madison, Oneida, Cortland, Chenango and Broome counties, and employs about 800 faculty and support staff in its schools. The total budget for running all 24 diocesan schools is about $36 million.
Mominey said that in the 2009-10 school year, the district spent an average of $7,800 per-pupil to educate its nearly 6,000 students. Average tuition is $4,630, with tuition for elementary pupils $3,700, and junior and senior high school students, $5,500. Tuition pays about 60 percent of the per-pupil cost, with parish support, alumni and development paying the rest.
Enrollment figures, tuition and spending figures for the current year won’t be available until October.
By comparison, the Syracuse City School District, with a general fund budget of about $354 million and an estimated enrollment this year of 21,329, will spend about $17,000 per pupil. Some of the city district’s costs come from providing services, like busing, to Catholic schools and other private schools.
Reach John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.
