Queen of Peace church is at a mission crossroads

Queen of Peace school has been around town a long time. Since before the big fire. Since 1911, to be precise.

The new principal, David Douglas, is just finishing up his first year at the school. He’s breathed some new life and energy into the school, which has an enthusiastic staff and student body, but is always under the scrutiny of the parish due to its immense costs.

Running a private school isn’t cheap, and our strong public schools make the decision difficult for those choosing between a tuition-free public school and a parochial school.

Setting aside the obvious lack of religious curriculum in the public schools, both systems have their advantages. For example, providing high quality math and science has always been more of a struggle for Queen of Peace school. The public schools can’t match educating children on compassion and empathy.

Douglas recently explained to me how the parish fuels its mission in the community. “It’s the school,” he said. “Queen of Peace doesn’t have a soup kitchen, or a hospital. We’ve decided, as a parish, that the school is our mission.”

That was a curious explanation. It had never been explained to me that way before. Douglas said the school isn’t needed to support the church; the school is the church’s effort to provide a Catholic education to its parishioners, and to those who want what Queen of Peace school has to offer.

Douglas is aware of the school’s educational strengths and weaknesses.

“We’ve worked on the curriculum this past year, and we’re introducing new tools to improve the education experience,” he told me.

That means a new math program (Sexton Math, which has seen good results elsewhere) and even bringing back some of the traditional liberal arts components such as Latin and Shakespeare.

“Strengthening the curriculum doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process and it takes time. But we’re committed,” Douglas said.

Again, small private schools are expensive to run. It’s been estimated that about 65 percent of the money collected each week from parishioners goes to support the school. But only 25 percent of the families in the parish with school-age children send their kids to Queen of Peace school. The reasons vary from limited course offerings, uncertainty about the school’s future, and the cost of tuition. After all, the public schools are free. There’s no discount on your property taxes if you send your children to private school.

“It’s a Catch-22,” the Rev. Justin Fish wrote in a recent letter to parishioners. “If the school had more students, the future would be more secure, the school could offer more, and tuition could be reduced as all burdens would be shared more widely.”

It doesn’t seem that the school is in danger, but the parish does need to decide if supporting a school is really the best way to use resources to further its religious mission.

So, the church is hosting a town hall-style meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 4, in the school gym. The discussion, led by Fish and Douglas, will focus on this past year and the church’s hopes for the future, and possibly about adding a seventh and eighth grade. The school is K-6 for now.

I’ve met many people in Cloquet who speak fondly of their time at Queen of Peace school, some as far back as the 1950s. I hope the people attending the town hall meeting next week come up with some pretty good plans, and that this school continues to serve the Cloquet community for years to come.

Pete Radosevich is the publisher of the Pine Knot News community newspaper and an attorney in Esko who hosts the talk show Harry’s Gang on CAT-7. He can be reached at [email protected].