BC to help run ailing elementary school

Boston College announced yesterday that it will run St. Columbkille School with the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston starting in September, a bid to ensure the survival of the only parochial school left in the Allston-Brighton area while the future of urban Catholic schools remains in jeopardy nationwide.

It is the first time that a parochial school in the United States has ceded some operational control to a Catholic university and the most significant effort to date by a Catholic college to help preserve elementary Catholic education, according to the National Catholic Education Association.

The unique partnership could serve as a model to save urban Catholic schools in other parts of the country, said Sister Dale McDonald, director of public policy at the association, which is based in Washington, D.C.

Catholic universities have tremendous financial resources and expertise that could benefit struggling schools, she said yesterday.

Under the agreement, St. Columbkille will be run by a board of trustees with representatives from the archdiocese, Boston College, and St. Columbkille Parish. Boston College -- which has provided the school with teachers, student mentors, and a tutoring program for more than a decade -- will expand its role by training more teachers, developing curriculum, and helping raise money through an endowment.

School officials told teachers and parents yesterday, ending concerns that the tiny 105-year-old parish school would close because of financial woes and declining enrollment, as neighboring St. Anthony's and Our Lady of Presentation schools did last year.

''There were always rumors about the school closing," said principal Mary Battles. ''This will kibosh it right away. It's security for parents."

The school, which enrolled as many as 1,800 students in the early 1960s when it included high school grades, now has 274 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. It has an annual budget of about $700,000 and charges tuition of $2,850.

Battles, who graduated from the school in 1966 and has been principal since 1986, said she hopes the partnership with the university will bring the school more resources. She said the school would particularly benefit from updated textbooks and teacher training materials, innovative ways to teach math and science, and the latest research on how best to teach bilingual, special education, and young children. BC also plans to beef up its mental health, social services, afterschool, and summer programs.

Under the plan, the school at St. Columbkille's would serve as a lab for BC's Lynch School of Education to test courses and teaching methods, said the Rev. Joseph M. O'Keefe, dean of the education school. Also, more St. Columbkille teachers would be able to receive their master's degrees from BC, which will waive tuition.

Boston College officials will survey the school facilities, including the three-story brick schoolhouse, which is not accessible to the disabled. The college could help pay for renovations at the school, which has a drafty gym that doubles as an auditorium, a library with half-empty bookshelves, and a prekindergarten classroom stuffed into a former storage room in the basement.

College officials said they will not know how much the partnership will cost the college until the board finishes a study of St. Columbkille's curriculum, facilities, and finances.

Boston College will continue working with other schools, but those relationships are far less extensive than the one planned with St. Columbkille.

The pastor of St. Columbkille Parish approached Boston College officials three years ago, when St. Columbkille was faced with closure because the Archdiocese could no longer afford to subsidize parish schools.

Catholic schools have also grown increasingly expensive to run because they must now pay laypeople who make up most of the teachers, as opposed to decades ago when nearly all teachers were nuns and priests who were paid comparatively little. Of St. Columbkille's 14 teachers, only two are nuns. Urban schools are also losing students, many of whom have moved to the suburbs.

Boston College's relationship with St. Columbkille will be a much smaller version of Boston University's 17-year partnership with Chelsea public schools, Boston College officials said.

Boston University began managing the Chelsea schools in 1989, when the system was in dire financial and academic straits, under an agreement with the Legislature, City Council, and School Committee.

Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley said the archdiocese is encouraging more Catholic colleges to reach out to Catholic elementary and middle schools. The archdiocese has closed or plans to close at least two dozen of its parochial schools since 2002, leaving 114 elementary schools. Last summer, it launched a yearlong study of how to strengthen Catholic education.

O'Malley said the archdiocese will closely watch the new partnership at St. Columbkille and possibly seek similar efforts at other parish schools. ''Certainly the resources that Boston College is bringing to the school will guarantee not only its survival but its success," O'Malley said in an interview Saturday. ''But even beyond this, our Catholic college presidents in the archdiocese have all expressed an interest in collaborating in whatever ways they can to support Catholic schools."

Kelly Walsh, whose 5- and 6-year-old sons attend St. Columbkille, said the announcement put parents at ease and will probably help boost the school's future enrollment, since parents will no longer worry about uprooting their children.

Sreeja Kalapurakkel, a St. Columbkille sixth-grader who has attended the school since kindergarten, said yesterday that she felt as if a weight had been lifted off her and her parents' shoulders.

''When all the other schools were closing in our community, I thought there would be a slight chance our school might close, too, so I felt very worried and anxious," she said. ''I'm very happy to know I can stay here."

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.