Parochial schools in Naperville are being inundated by parents searching for alternatives to public schools for the upcoming school year.
Since Naperville District 203 and Indian Prairie District 204 announced back-to-school plans that included remote learning, there’s been a significant spike in emails and calls from parents wanting what private schools can provide this fall: daily in-person instruction in a classroom, officials said.
Patricia Bajek, director of student services for All Saints Catholic Academy, said admission inquiries at the K-8 school on Aurora Avenue were quiet from the middle of March to the end of May.
In June, when All Saints began resuming in-person tours, 17 new students enrolled, Bajek said.
By July, when public school districts announced they would be offering a mix of in-person and remote learning, requests for information “took off like lightning,” she said. The two districts have since decided all classes will be done remotely into October.
“I have been on roller skates (keeping up with requested) tours,” Bajek said. “We are full in kindergarten and seventh grade and have more and more people inquiring every day.”
While smaller class sizes allow All Saints to reopen and maintain distancing required by the COVID-19 pandemic, she said “it was more the five-day, in-person instruction that has resonated with these families, which we are offering.”
Principal Erin Dunwell of Bethany Lutheran School said most of the 150 inquiries she’s received in the past month are about kindergarten and first-grade classes.
Because the grades are so critical for developing the groundwork for future education, parents are looking for in-person classroom instruction, she said. “That seems to be huge,” Dunwell said.
She added many of the parents are working and don’t trust remote learning to help their young learners.
In some cases people are bringing in a deposit to hold a spot without touring the school, she said.
Because of the demand, her school was able to expand the size of first grade to accommodate more students, Dunwell said. “A lot of our grades are full,” she said.
The school offers instruction for preschoolers through eighth grade, and it’s the preschool level that seems to be the most in flux.
Dunwell said one day she’ll get a call from a preschool parent who decided to homeschool and the next day another parent wants to enroll their young child.
Tricia Weis, the new principal of Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic School near downtown Naperville, said they’ve added roughly 20 new students in the last three weeks.
“I have five tours in the next two days alone this week,” Weiss said Monday.
The school, which resumes classes Aug. 19, has so many people wanting to enroll their children in grades 4, 7 and 8 that they’ve reached their maximum capacity and had to create waiting lists, she said.
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