MA Private Schools Thrive As Public Schools Keep Doors Closed

ARLINGTON, MA — Steve Barrett hasn't had much of a summer break. That's a good thing for the vice principal of Arlington Catholic High School, who also heads the school's enrollment and says demand is higher than he's ever seen it.

"This is the busiest summer I've had in my 12 years here," Barrett told Patch.

Arlington Catholic has admitted 15 transfer students in grades 10-12 and five or six new freshmen since July 1, Barrett said. Its K-8 school, St. Agnes, has enrolled 67 students – a 33 percent increase in the student population – during that same period.

Barrett attributes the uptick to some families' dissatisfaction with public school reopening plans.

"Overwhelmingly, the students are coming from public school settings because their community plans don't really fit parents' needs or the educational needs of the students," Barrett said. "Small neighborhood clusters have been coming because they don't like what's going on with the public schools."

The reopening plan for the St. Agnes School is full in-person learning. The smaller student body — 265 versus Arlington Catholic's 435 — means they can properly socially distance, and the increased enrollment has allowed the school to hire additional staff and add one classroom to each grade level, Barrett said.

Meanwhile, the high school will open on a hybrid schedule, dividing the student body into two cohorts. One cohort will attend school for a full week while the other follows along remotely, and the cohorts will switch the following week. The school has invested $75,000 in technology and infrastructure to ensure all students can learn at the same time, even if they are not all in the building, Barrett said.

Arlington Public Schools is also reopening with a hybrid model; Barrett said the majority of transfers are from outside of Arlington.

Arlington Catholic is not the only private school in the area seeing an increased demand. Robert Chevrier, principal of the St. Joseph School in Medford, told Patch enrollment has risen by 5-10 percent, and applications and transfers have "increased dramatically." The school has had to waitlist students in some grades.

"I'd say the majority of inquiries are from public school," Chevrier said. St. Joseph, a PreK-8 school, will start Sept. 3 with a parent walkthrough so families can see the health and safety measures that have been implemented. The first day of school will be Sept. 10.

Parents can choose to send their kids to school for in-person learning or livestream classes from home. Students may opt back into school at the start of each month if they are learning remotely.

"A lot of places are waiting until October to open, or going for a semester remote," Chevrier said. "The biggest difference of course is that we're starting, if the parent chooses, to either have their child educated in person or through a stream. Give them the option that they can change as time changes."

Chevrier added that the Medford Public Schools has been "wonderful" in helping St. Joseph prepare for the upcoming school year.

Only a handful of public school districts in the state plan to open for full in-person learning this fall. The majority of districts have opted for hybrid or fully remote plans, frustrating some parents in communities where coronavirus infection rates are trending in the right direction.

One Medford parent, who did not want to be named, wrote in an email that he enrolled his daughter in the Medford Public Schools for kindergarten before switching to the St. Raphael Parish School, "mainly because St. Ray's is opening for in-person instruction."

"We know there are risks, but in our view going remote or hybrid is difficult for us to manage with our jobs and frankly is worse for her socially and academically," he wrote.

In a recent essay in The Atlantic, a Somerville resident slammed district officials for not considering in-person learning, despite health experts' determination that Massachusetts schools can reopen with precautions. The Medford School Committee voted last week to start the year fully remote after initially adopting a hybrid model, leaving many parents confused about the plan to start the school year.

Officials at Malden Catholic High School said their normal transfer demand has tripled since June, due to a "record-high number of applications and growing waitlist," according to a statement on the school's website. Malden Catholic is implementing a hybrid model with in-person classes 2-3 days a week. Malden Public Schools, meanwhile, is starting the school year remotely.

Barrett said his goal from the beginning was to reopen Arlington Catholic and St. Agnes, and he is "very eager" to start the school year.

"We've accepted the challenge, and we feel we've met the challenge of reopening in a strong successful way to provide high quality in-person instruction," he said.