‘Catholic schools doing their best to keep costs low’

The two Catholic schools in the CNMI—Mount Carmel School and Eskuelan San Francisco de Borja—are doing their best to keep costs low while continuing to give their students high quality education, according to Fr. Ryan Jimenez, the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa and superintendent of catholic schools in the CNMI.

“Our Catholic schools have kept their costs well below both national and local averages while keeping tuition affordable for our families. In other words, we’re doing our best to keep our costs low and our quality high, but we still need help from the community to make up the difference,” said Jimenez, speaking to members of the Rotary Club of Saipan at the Hyatt Regency Saipan yesterday.

He noted, though, that this careful balancing of costs and education standards amidst the financial challenges facing the islands haven’t been easy.

Quoting the National Catholic Education Association, Jimenez said the national cost per child at Catholic schools is $5,387 for elementary and $11,790 for high school students.

“In contrast, the local cost per child at our Catholic schools is $4,800 for elementary and high school students. Compare that with CNMI’s public schools where, with a total of $62.3 million in local and federal funds available for about 11,000 students, the cost per child is about $5,600.”

Even then, average tuition for elementary and high school students at Mount Carmel School and Eskuelan San Francisco de Borja is actually only $3,250 per child, he said.

“Our Catholic schools offer a number of scholarships and financial aid packages, which brings that cost down to $1,500 for some students.”

Another challenge, Jimenez said, is the CNMI Public School System’s shift from Title V to Title I federal funding, which resulted in federal funds no longer going directly to private schools to supplement curriculum and instruction in the form of new textbooks, technology resources, or special services such as reading resource teachers.

Despite these challenges, he said the two Catholic schools in the CNMI make a difference by making the most with what little they have.

For instance, he said, Mount Carmel School has raised the standards for student performance, upgrading its accreditation to AdvancED and adopting the newly developed National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools.

These higher standards have boosted student performance on standardized tests and on last year’s SAT-10 test, students at Mount Carmel School scored, on average, better than 61 percent of the rest of the nation, he said.

“On top of all that, Mount Carmel School has launched a number of innovative programs, such as the Knights Seminar, which prepares students for life after high school with its focus on work readiness, financial literacy, work readiness, and study skills. The school has also been running its successful SAT Boot Camp, which has seen students improve their SAT scores by an average of 200 points.”

The school’s students also shine in numerous extra-curricular activities, excel in a number of interscholastic competitions, and gain admission into some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities, he said.

“In fact, with the Class of 2013, Mount Carmel School achieved a noteworthy milestone: 100 percent college placement. That means that every member of the Class of 2013 is now enrolled in some form of postsecondary education.”

He also lauded the achievements made by the Eskuelan San Fransico de Borja.

“Eskuelan San Fransico de Borja has joined Mount Carmel School in making miracles happen. Despite all the challenges of running a private school on Rota, the administrators, faculty, and staff have reached out to the community to establish partnerships to help its students as well as the community. For example, the school ran a very successful summer camp program last year that gave Rota youth a lot to do on an island where there isn’t much for young people to do, and the school continues to work closely with the community to collaborate on a number of initiatives.”