Catholics Go To Catholic Schools For Free in Witchita Kansas!!

One thing I have learned since becoming Catholic is

(1) We are pretty clueless about what is doing great in other Dioceses

and

(2) When we do learn it we don't often explore duplicating it or asking WHY NOT HERE. I have learned the Diocesan Office is often great for giving reasons why things will not work or cannot be done before we can even start the conversation or study it

This is truly amazing. Go see Go Wichita! and the other related post that is linked Tuition-free Catholic schools . We learn that
Of particular interest is the story of the Wichita, Kansas Catholic School System. With but 120,000 Catholics in the diocese Wichita maintains 39 Catholic schools. 36 of these are parish schools (including 34 elementary schools), one is a free-standing preschool, and four are Catholic high schools. According to the report, "What makes the Wichita system truly unusual in this day and age is the fact that all Wichita Catholic schools have eliminated tuition for Catholic students."This has been accomplished by pastors and the bishop calling on all "parishioners to live a 'stewardship way of life' that involved a greater commitment to their parish and Catholic ideals."The response has been nothing short of amazing. Learning from the example of one parish that had been modeling a stewardship program throughout the 1960s an 1970s, the bishop encouraged all his people to do the same starting in 1984. Support has grown so much since then that the last Catholic school to be charging any tuition to Catholic students stopped doing so in 2002.

Why not here!!! The Diocese of Wichita is one of those amazing places where great things are happening on several levels.WHY NOT HERE? Why not where you are at? It is Kansas for goodness sakes

We have a huge new wave of immigrants and we need these schools. We hear there are problems with Catholic Schools closing yet here we see the opposite!! Why not here?

What about non Catholics and Catholic Schools? Well the article linked to touches on that.

Many years ago I went to Chicago on a Church based mission trip. We attended a Catholic Church that was nearly all African American. It was a beautiful old Church but you could tell that there were fewer people attending Mass than once was.

I asked the Priest how in the world did so many of these African Americans , that were came from the South mostly via the great migration, become Catholic? His answer was the Catholic schools.