Education summit looks at school closings, future

Published: 2006-06-30

BOSTON (CNS) -- Catholic school educators and administrators took a close look at the challenges facing Catholic schools today, particularly school closings, during a June 23-25 summit at Boston College. The three-day session, co-sponsored by the college, the National Catholic Educational Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, focused on new initiatives to improve Catholic schools such as restructuring school systems to meet changing demographics and finding new ways to raise funds. The annual summit, called SPICE, for Selected Programs for Improving Catholic Education, typically highlights programs that work so other educators may replicate or adapt them in their dioceses. Jesuit Father Joseph O'Keefe, dean of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, said the hope for Catholic schools was summed up in the words of Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, who attended a Catholic school as a non-Catholic and was led to enter the church through his education. "It brought home the great treasure that these schools are and how important these schools can be in the lives of kids," Father O'Keefe told The Pilot, Boston's archdiocesan newspaper.

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