Students listen intently in Sally Gibson's literature class at Cardinal Newman High School. Administrators find their Catholic identity the best way to draw students to their schools.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Like many Catholic schools, Cardinal Newman High School has worked to reinvent itself over the years to draw students.

In 2005, it became the first Catholic school in Florida to offer an International Baccalaureate program. It’s added college prep courses and is preparing to add more science, technology, engineering and math initiatives.

The new programs may help the school respond to an increasingly competitive school choice landscape. The surrounding Palm Beach County school district has added magnet, IB and career academies. Charter schools have proliferated, and now enroll more than one out of 10 students. But they face competition too, and charter enrollment actually fell this year.

In this environment, faith-based private schools don’t only have to attract families but convince them to pay tuition.  Schools like Cardinal Newman have found that faith may be their biggest competitive edge.

“The difficulty for a school of Newman’s nature is it is a tuition-driven school,” said Rev. David Carr, the president of Cardinal Newman High School. “When these programs are offered in the public school, somebody says, ‘I can go to Suncoast Community High School, and it is free. They are not coming because Newman has an IB program. They want to be at Cardinal Newman.”

A major reason they want to be at Cardinal Newman, Carr said, is the Catholic faith.

“It is our mission to educate the whole child: mind, body and spirit,” he said. “You don’t teach faith because you can’t. What you have to do is bring out the faith that is within. That is what it is all about.” (more…)

WEST PALM BEACH - Like traditional public schools and charter schools — and other faith-based schools — many Florida Catholic schools are struggling to fund added security measures.

Catholic school leaders have received help from the church, but they say they still struggle to cover the costs of school resource officers and other enhancements.

In the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach added a policeman on campus from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. in addition to a regular policeman who is on campus in the afternoons from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. That pushed daily security expenses to $500 per day.

Rev. David Carr, president of Cardinal Newman, said the additional security expenses will add a new strain to the school's finances over a full 180-day school year.

“For the next school year that will mean $90,000 for security which is not included in next year’s budget,” he said. “We are concerned about funding for security.”

The struggle to fund additional security mirrors the struggles school boards around the state have faced as the figure out how to hire additional officers or armed guards. The Legislature mandated armed security officers at public schools and provided funding to help defray the cost. But private schools must respond to similar public concerns with their own funding sources. (more…)