Parishioners and school parents have routinely expressed the need for and interest in childcare for younger children and summer programming for children in kindergarten through second grade. Single-parent families and those with two working parents struggle to find childcare generally, and particularly childcare that covers full working days across the entire summer period, in a safe and familiar environment close to home. On that basis, we hope that developing such programs will help SSP attract new families to the school and retain them through eighth grade. Early childhood and summer programming would also provide the school additional sources of revenue to help cover the fixed costs of maintaining school/parish facilities. SSP would engage in these endeavors from a position of relative strength.

The State of Missouri exempts religious institutions from most childcare facility regulations -- specific staffing ratios, background checks, etc. -- giving SSP a cost advantage over proprietary vendors. Additional market advantages include SSP’s proven track record of quality preschool programming and related institutional knowledge; existing facilities and equipment; the present base of parish/school families; and the significant startup capital contributed by the parish. While SSP would launch these programs from a strong footing, we would certainly also encounter some significant challenges. Staffing represents the primary obstacle to creating and successfully operating new childcare programs. Summer camps and childcare facilities large and small struggle to hire and retain adequate qualified staff. The wage costs of robust staffing often overwhelm the already-thin operating margins of operators in less-affluent markets, particularly if they choose not to accept public subsidy via the Missouri Child Care Subsidy program, participation in which would require SSP to meet the licensure standards of a for-profit vendor. The Board and school/parish leadership will need to carefully consider, among other things, whether to participate in the subsidy program as part of SSP’s overall approach to tuition and financial aid for school families. In either case, SSP may find it challenging to recruit and retain adequate staff without jeopardizing fiscal health.

Curriculum and programming represent additional challenges. Extending the regular preschool curriculum through the summer months appears fairly straightforward, but creating a new, market-competitive summer camp offering may present some difficulty, particularly given the relatively strong local competition from the Carondelet YMCA and Concordia Turners summer camp programs, both of which offer outdoor aquatic programming inaccessible to SSP. Some creativity will be required to ensure a robust set of activities attractive to kids. A summer-long equivalent of school recess on the playground may not generate the enrollment revenue needed to cover costs.

Having considered the potential benefits, likely costs, and expected challenges, the Board and parish/school leadership has decided to pursue limited summer programming in 2024. That will include a pilot summer preschool program open to children eligible for preschool in the 2023-24 school year and a pilot summer camp program open to children that were eligible for kindergarten through second grade in 2023-24. These programs will be open to all children, regardless of whether they attended SSP during the 2023-24 school year. Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, SSP will also commence a pilot early-childhood program open to children aged two and three.

COMING UP

• Recruit additional staff and establish tuition rates in early 2024
• Open enrollment in April 2024
• Kick off summer camp and summer preschool in June 2024
• Pilot early-childhood program for 2-year-olds in fall 2025

We know that our best ambassadors to introduce SSP School to new families are our existing school families. Beginning with enrollment for the 2024-25 school year, we’ll offer an incentive and an expression of gratitude to existing and past school families who help great new families find our school. When a family enrolls children in our K-8 school for the first time, we’ll ask the family if someone helped them become part of our school community. If they name someone from a current or past school family, we’ll give that family a one-time $500 scholarship applicable to tuition at SSP School. We’ll give a family this scholarship for each new family that names them; if a new family names people from several families as ambassadors who helped them, we’ll divide the $500 scholarship among all the families named. Additionally, since families whose children have all graduated from SSP School could be some of our best ambassadors, we’ll also allow families to apply any Ambassador Scholarships they receive to tuition for Catholic high schools if they no longer have children at SSP School.
 

COMING UP

• Update FACTS online registration to include questions about referrals

As we seek a sustainable parish school, we decided on a significant tuition increase for families with two or more children in our school to better reflect the actual cost to educate each student. Our 2024-25 tuition rates are below. At the same time, we know that affording Catholic education becomes particularly difficult when families want to enroll more than one child in SSP School at the same time. Starting in the 2024-25 school year, we will offer a renewable $1,000 scholarship to each family with two or more children enrolled in K-8 at our school whose household income is $120,000 or less. In future years, we’ll consider whether additional scholarships like this are needed to keep SSP School affordable for families with multiple children enrolled.
 

COMING UP

• Develop online scholarship calculator tool
• Update FACTS online registration

The Board realizes that our school is one of the biggest ministries of our parish. That ministry also requires signficiant amount of time, talent, and treasure to achieve the mission of creating new disciples.

The Finance Standing Committee has begun to work with the parish Finance Council to explore opportunities for increasing donations to our school. This combined group will work on leveraging and maximizing return from current fundraisers as well as exploring opportunities for new sources of funding to the school. A large component of this effort will be a capital campaign to align with our school's 100th anniversary in 2027.