A web poll conducted by the Courier Post last month found 83% of respondents agreed with the recent school reconfiguration decisions announced by the Diocese.
1,782 online votes were cast in response to the question, “Do you think the Camden Diocese is right to merge schools with shrinking enrollments?”
The results of the online survey were published in the December 15 edition of the Courier Post.
Diocesan spokesman Andrew Walton said that while there is a growing appreciation as to why the reconfigurations were necessary, the decisions still have been painful.
“While there is public support for the decisions, we know that the pain of the decisions is very real and will not ease overnight. For this reason, we will work closely with affected school communities to help guide them through these difficult decisions and to ease the transitions that are ahead,” he said.
The diocese announced November 29 that one school would close and eight others would merge with neighboring schools at the end of the school year in June as a result of declining enrollments.
The Catholic Schools Office of the diocese has provided advice and guidelines to affected schools to help facilitate the reconfigurations. Principals of the affected schools already have invited representatives from the school communities to form local transition teams and merging schools already have held joint events to build school spirit and to welcome families.
The Office of Catholic Schools also has initiated a search process to fill the principal positions at the merged schools. The positions will be open to principals of the schools involved in the mergers, as well as to any principals in the diocese who are affected by school closing or merging decisions. A search committee, after interviewing candidates, will recommend two finalists to the respective pastors and to the superintendent who will interview both candidates and make the final decisions. New principals are expected to be announced later this month.
All teachers in schools affected by consolidation are eligible to apply for positions in the newly-created schools. Principals of the merged schools will conduct classroom observation of teachers who apply, will conduct joint interviews and will arrive at hiring decisions. Principals have been asked to include a balance of teachers from participating schools on the faculty roster for each newly created school.
Meanwhile, the Diocesan Human Resources office will meet in the weeks ahead with school personnel who will not have positions to outline an assistance plan and to provide transitional help.
Registration for the 2008-09 school year will begin January 4 and extend through February 15, 2008 for the newly merged schools.
All students currently attending schools in a merger will be guaranteed a place if they are registered by Feb. 15.