St. Louis Catholic school seeks charter status

ST. LOUIS -- A Catholic middle school in St. Louis hopes to become the city's first to convert from a private school into a taxpayer-supported public charter.

De La Salle Middle School had hoped to receive state approval to make the switch in 2014 but now plans a 2015-2016 school year conversion.

As a public charter, De La Salle would have to remove all outward signs of its Catholic affiliation, including crucifixes. The curriculum would become a secular one, and school prayers as well as mandatory monthly Mass at the neighborhood parish would also be eliminated.

A De La Salle charter also would be legally required to accept all eligible students, offer expensive special education services and only accept city residents. The tuition-free public school would operate independently from the city school system, though, and still would have local control over its operations.

The decision to begin De La Salle's conversion was not an easy one, said Chuck Kretschmer, chairman of the school's 19-member governing board.

"There was a great deal of soul-searching," he said. "We are a Catholic school, so really what we had to reconcile with ourselves is: Is it more important that we serve twice as many children, or that we retain our faith-based foundation? Our answer was, go out and serve twice as many kids."

Families of the 67 De La Salle students pay just 3 percent of the $15,000 annual tuition, according to the school. To stay open, the school must raise between $1.5 million and $2 million annually.

As a charter, the school could receive about $8,000 in state money per student. That influx of funds would allow the school to double its size to 120 students.

The St. Louis Archdiocese does not support the conversion of Catholic schools to charters.

"It would be very much in competition with the very mission of what we're trying to do with our schools," said George Henry, the archdiocese's Catholic schools' superintendent. "It doesn't seem like us running government schools is where our time and energy and resources should be going."

"The charter schools obviously are in competition with the Catholic schools for students," Henry added. "We are trying to fill as many empty seats in our schools as we can."

De La Salle Middle School was founded in 2001 as part of an effort by the Christian Brothers order to improve educational prospects for the poor. Unlike most neighborhood-based parish schools, it draws students from across the region. Class sizes are kept small, with no more than 13 students. The school day is almost eight hours long, and children attend school year-round.