Hard times lead to some hard back-to-school choices

Enrollment at Gateway Christian School is headed for a 10 percent drop this fall, and Principal Sam Postlewaite knows one big reason: the bad economy.

Scrimping in hard economic times, religious families are deciding which is the bigger priority: private, faith-based education or the money saved by choosing free or lower-cost schools.

At Gateway in Virginia Beach, Postlewaite predicted he'll have 375 to 380 students this fall, compared with 420 last year.

"Obviously, it's just tough times" for parents, he said. "Either job wages haven't gone up, or the cost of everything else is going up." Tuition at Gateway is about $4,000, he said.

Private schools tend to feel the pinch in recessionary times, said Georgey McVey, president of the Virginia Council for Private Education, an accrediting organization for private schools.

"People are trying to decide where they can cut back, and there is a free alternative," he said, referring to public schools.

Parents who prefer faith-based education have fewer choices: home schooling or shopping around for a cheaper religious day school, he said.

South Hampton Roads has dozens of faith-based schools, including Norfolk Christian Schools, where Jane Duffey, the academic dean, said she's seen a 20 percent increase in requests from student households for additional financial aid. Tuition ranges from $6,300 in elementary grades to $8,700 in the senior year.

"In the admissions office, we're getting a considerable number of calls from people asking right off the bat for that help," she said of prospective students. She said enrollment is down about 2 percent from last year's 750 students.

At St. Pius X Catholic School, Sister Linda Taber, the principal, said enrollment is steady but scholarship giving is up $20,000. The school encouraged every student's household to apply.

"We have had people say their work hours have been cut. It's hard times," Taber said. Tuition ranges from $3,600 for in-parish students to $5,100 for out-of-parish students.

She said her school lost one student household not to tuition costs, but to the high cost of gas.

"The mom told me it would be a 60-mile commute for her each day," driving children to and from St. Pius X, Taber said. "The gas was the issue." The school does not offer busing.

At Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, Heather Moore has seen a big increase in requests for tuition assistance. Also, parents are asking for larger amounts of aid.

"Some people don't want to ask for aid," said Moore, the academy's financial officer. "But I think that feeling is passing when people are deciding whether their child can go to day school or have to go to public school."

Moore said the increase in scholarship requests started last year. Now, 40 percent of the 200-student school, which runs from pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade, gets help. Tuition is about $10,000 annually, she said.

"I'm hearing a lot that a spouse has lost their job, they'll have to live on one income for a while," Moore said. "I'm seeing more of that than in the last 10 years."

Academy parents include Helen Pomerantz, whose son, Bret, is entering fifth grade. A daughter, Dara, is entering seventh grade in a secular private school because the academy extends only through the sixth grade.

Pomerantz said she'll travel 40 miles a day driving her children to and from school, at a cost of $300 a month in gas.

Her husband, Alex, works in the real estate sector, which is in a slump. To offset education costs, Pomerantz canceled her family's annual Club Med vacation, skipped summer camp for her children and is cooking more meals at home. Pomerantz, a cardiac therapist, is looking for a part-time job after being a stay-at-home mom.

The family could send both children to the public school across the street from their home in the Western Branch section of Chesapeake, she said. But "the experience we get by sending them to the Hebrew Academy is so much more important."

"It's the values they learn, and they learn more about their religion than I learned in my entire life."

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com