PhillyDeals: Businesspeople boosting Catholic schools

Banker Vernon Hill, who sent his four children to expensive Philadelphia-area private schools, told me years ago that he wondered if he'd really gotten the best bang for his buck.

"I'm not Catholic," he said, "but one thing I've noticed: A lot of my best loan officers and managers didn't go to fancy schools. They attended those Catholic parochial schools in some of those tough neighborhoods in North and West Philadelphia. The people there really push you to do your best."

But the parishes that used to own and operate those schools are in trouble. Catholics have moved out of old neighborhoods, and the increasingly non-Catholic families who still

attend can't pay enough tuition to renovate old buildings and pay teacher salaries.

Competition from publicly funded charter schools has also cut into parochial school enrollment, which in the city is 33,000, down more than 40 percent in the last 10 years. When private school students transfer to public schools, local and state taxpayers have to start paying for their education.

As the Philadelphia Archdiocese has ordered schools closed and consolidated, businesspeople have stepped forward, not just to bridge the funding gap, but to nudge the schools toward private-sector management practices that could help them stay open.

Developer and mining-company owner Michael O'Neill attended Our Lady of Lourdes in Overbrook. Now, even though he lives out in St. David's on the Main Line, O'Neill and other parish school alumni who've made money - and others who never went but employ people who do - are reaching back to the old parishes to return the favor.

O'Neill heads the enlarged board that took over the 30-year-old fund-raising group Business Leaders Organized for Catholic Schools (www.blocs.org) last year.

The group has boosted funds raised for its yearly gala to $1.2 million, from $442,000 the year before. Corporate donations through the state Educational Improvement tax credit program are $2.8 million so far this year, up from $2.3 million in each of the previous two years.

In addition, BLOCS has collected the first $10 million in commitments toward a projected $50 million endowment that would help keep the most endangered parish schools open.

That money has certain strings attached. The donors' intention is to funnel it to those parishes that set up an advisory board - including parents, graduates and businesspeople - to help the schools figure out ways to do more with less.

It's a work in progress, says O'Neill. BLOCS is "working closely with the archdiocese to determine the exact nature and power of each board," said spokeswoman Holly Mantle. The boards will be independent, tax-free 501(c)3 corporations, with six to 15 members.

The handful of schools where BLOCS members have been most active, including St. Cyril's in East Lansdowne, last year reported a boost in enrollment from following the committee's suggestions, including a sliding tuition scale. St. Malachy's and St. Martin de Porres in North Philadelphia and St. Francis de Sales in West Philadelphia were also early beneficiaries of BLOCS' stepped-up involvement.

Now O'Neill and his colleagues are looking for volunteers to start new boards at Holy Child School in Manayunk, Our Mother of Sorrows in West Philadelphia, St. Athanasius-Immaculate Conception in Germantown, Mercy Vocational High School in Tioga, and at his old parish, Lourdes.

"Those are the schools BLOCS has met with and they have an interest to be part of the endowment program," said Mantle.

Besides O'Neill, BLOCS's central board includes a range of Philadelphia professionals. A sampling: Brian McElwee, president of Valley Forge Investment Corporation; Matthew Topley, senior equity trader at Turner Investment Partners in Berwyn; Comcast senior vice president Joseph M. Donnelly; Aramark executive vice president and general counsel Bart J. Colli.

O'Neill says he wants to extend the program to Northeast Philadelphia and the suburbs as it grows.