Quincy Catholic Elementary Schools Foundation announces increased enrollment

8 months, 2 weeks ago

The total enrollment Kindergarten through 8th grade has increased by 48 students, nearly 6% for the 2012-13 school year. This is the first increase since the 1997-98 school year

The Quincy Catholic Elementary Schools Foundation has announced an enrollment increase, grades Kindergarten through 8, for Blessed Sacrament, St. Dominic, St. Francis and St. Peter. This is the first increase since the 1997-98 school year.

The total enrollment Kindergarten through 8th grade has increased by 48 students, nearly 6% for the 2012-13 school year. Total enrollment for Kindergarten through 8th grade is 903 students.  The pre-school enrollment increased by 19 students, more than 12% for a total of 174 students for the pre-school program. The combined 2012-13 enrollment number for Quincy’s four Catholic Elementary Schools in grades pre-K - 8th currently stands at 1,077 students, a total increase of 67 students. This is the largest enrollment in the four Catholic elementary schools since the 2007-08 school year.

This increase is due to a number of initiatives. One is a more aggressive marketing campaign promoting awareness of what is offered in the elementary schools. Another is the Each One, Reach One program with the school parents. 

“Thanks must be given to our QCES parents who entrust their children and their children’s education to our four elementary schools, and who support what we do by being ambassadors for our schools and sharing with others why they’ve chosen a Catholic elementary school education for their children,” stated Paul Rittof, Executive Director of the Quincy Catholic Elementary Schools Foundation.

There is also more tuition assistance available.  The QCES Foundation had $175,000 available in tuition-assistance dollars to award QCES families with demonstrated financial need, both Catholic and non-Catholic, for the 2012-13 school year.  As of today, 153 families with a total of 228 students enrolled in one of the four Quincy Catholic elementary schools received $165,200, in tuition assistance, including one family from each of Quincy’s four Catholic parishes, who received the Fr. Augustine Tolton Scholarship, a need-based, renewable, full-tuition scholarship. 

Funds for tuition-assistance are budgeted by each parish, along with the dollars generated by the QCES Foundation’s annual “Friend of Catholic Education Award” dinner, the “Everybody Wins Mega Raffle,” and financial contributions from individual donors.  “The QCES Foundation still has some tuition-assistance dollars available for those families with demonstrated financial need who may still wish to enroll their children in one of our four Quincy Catholic Elementary Schools,” said Executive Director Paul Rittof.

For more information on enrollment and the tuition-assistance application process, please contact Paul Rittof, executive director of the Quincy Catholic Elementary Schools Foundation, at 217-779-3157 or p.rittof@cospq.org.

The Quincy Catholic Elementary Schools Foundation was established in August 2009 to support Catholic elementary education in Quincy through the establishment of a permanent tuition-assistance fund. The primary goal of the QCES Foundation is to make a Catholic elementary school education affordable and attainable for every family seeking to send their children to one of the four Catholic elementary schools in Quincy.