Parents find it harder going private

Sue and Ralph Iden have sent their 12-year-old son, Jeremy, to Elgin's Einstein Academy for three years.

Jeremy is a gifted student, and public schools in McHenry, where the family lives, don't offer adequate programs to suit his needs, Sue said.

"It's really essential for him," she said.

Still, the school's $8,500 tuition has proved to be a challenge for the middle-class family.

With soaring gas prices and a rising cost of living, the Idens have made a laundry list of sacrifices to keep Jeremy in school at Einstein.

"We only eat out once in a great while now," she said. "We shop at Aldi more often."

And Sue, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, said that while the family's gas-guzzling minivan is easier on her achy knees, she now makes the long drive to take Jeremy to school in the family's Chevy Cavalier to save on gas.

The Idens also try to keep trips to school down to just one a day when possible, so Sue hangs out at Elgin's library while doing her consulting work online during school hours.

The efforts, she said, produce enough savings for the family to squeak by with tuition payments.

Other families hurting from the economic downturn aren't so lucky, as job loss, foreclosures and bankruptcies continue. Across the suburbs, private schools are doing what they can to help these families cope with the private school bills and families are taking extra steps to make it work, when they can, such as working off portions of the cost through work at the school buildings.

"We've had several families that have lost a job or are filing for bankruptcy," said Cathy Ilani, Einstein Academy's founder. "It's a very scary time."

The academy, which had seen its numbers grow steadily since 2002, is now down 10 percent from last year's enrollment of 140.

Compounding the school's problems are rising utility bills and 30 percent less in donations than last year.

"Our utilities bills are insane - about $5,000 a month," Ilani said. "Last year at this time, we were almost at half that."

At fundraisers, Ilani said, fewer donors are able to commit to big donations. Recently, she said, one father said he wished he could give more to the school. "But he said it comes down to buying gas and food these days. That's really sad, but it's reality," she said.

Despite a drop in donations, Einstein is still giving out as many need-based and academic-based scholarships as it has in the past.

"We didn't want to lose any of those students," Ilani said. "I don't know if we're going to be able to do that in the future, to bring in those funds."

Nationally, the number of families requesting help to pay the bill for private schools is expected to rise significantly, said Myra McGovern, spokeswoman for the National Association of Independent Schools.

While national enrollment counts for the current school year won't be out until November, McGovern said her experience with past recessions shows no sizable downturns in enrollment.

However, "we have seen a huge uptick in the number of families requesting financial aid."

McGovern said her organization expects much of the same now.

In the West and Northwest suburbs, a number of private schools are reporting enrollment drops coupled with a higher number of financial aid requests.

Enrollment is down by about three dozen this year at Driscoll Catholic High School in Addison, said school President Tom Geraghty. "We were anticipating about 350. We're at 314," he said.

The enrollment dip became very clear "when more and more people were being laid off by the airline industry," Geraghty said.

More Driscoll students than ever - roughly 60 percent - rely on financial aid. Both Driscoll students and their parents have the opportunity to participate in work programs where they do clerical and maintenance work to help offset tuition costs.

A number of families who simply cannot afford to pay the high school's $7,900 tuition this year have told school officials that when the economy gets better, they'll send their kids back to Driscoll, Geraghty said.

Officials with the Archdiocese schools in Chicago and Cook and Lake County hope the economy will not upset the trend of steady enrollment.

"What we saw last year was the most stable enrollment numbers we've seen in the past seven years," said Ryan Blackburn, spokesman for the Chicago Archdiocese Office of Catholic Schools. "We're hopeful that the trend will continue."

However, Blackburn noted, "the larger economic conditions may impact some of those trends. We're in a wait-and-see type of position."

With numbers due from the 258 Archdiocese schools last Friday, officials hope to have overall enrollment counts finished by sometime this week, Blackburn said.

At St. Hubert Catholic School in Hoffman Estates, enrollment numbers are steady - with 573 pupils this year compared to last year's 580, Principal Vito DeFrisco said.

While families remain committed to giving their children a Catholic education, many are having trouble paying their bills, DeFrisco said.

The school, which charges $3,852 per student - giving families with two or more children enrolled a slight break - collects tuition over a 12-month period. About 20 families, roughly 5 percent, have trouble paying on time.

"Last year was really the first year we had people coming to us saying, 'We're just struggling,'" he said.

While the school is committed to working with families trying to keep their children at the school, DeFrisco said, it's "a constant effort. We have to pay bills, too."

St. Hubert has resorted to using an outside service that collects tuition from families and reviews applications for financial aid, DeFrisco said.

"We really felt it was better to have someone else looking at each family's situation," DeFrisco said. "It takes us out of the picture."

A number of other Archdiocese schools, Blackburn said, are taking similar actions.

Chad Dirkse, superintendent of Westminster Christian Academy in Elgin, said the elementary side of his 500-student K-12 school is hurting the most.

"Parents are looking at it as, I'd like my kids to be in a Christian school, but if I have to make a choice, I'd rather have them in middle or high school than elementary," he said.

The school does offer need-based financial aid to students, and, like St. Hubert, uses a third-party source to work with families' finances.

"We've had more families express a need in financial aid," Dirkse said. Tuition costs at Westminster, on average, are about $6,000 per student.

The school also has seen a drop in calls from interested parents, Dirkse said.

The economic downturn "does tend to open your eyes to the things you need to be paying close attention to," Dirkse said. "What do families want? What expectations are not being met?"

Schools might not have any control over the economy, he said. "But we can examine our own program and see exactly why are these families not returning. ... That's the silver lining."