OREGON—The Kateri Catholic School System has announced plans to unite its middle school students from three different campuses under one roof beginning this fall.

The middle school is to be located in a designated wing of Oregon Cardinal Stritch High School as part of the newly-created Kateri Catholic Academy, a school for students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade that will also have elementary school campuses in Walbridge and Toledo for the next academic year.

Father David Reinhart, president of the Kateri Catholic School System, notified parents of the changes for the 2009-2010 school year in a letter he sent out Feb. 13.

When the Kateri Catholic School System formed in July 2008, it united Toledo Sacred Heart, Toledo St. Thomas Aquinas and Walbridge St. Jerome elementary schools with Oregon Cardinal Stritch High School. Elementary and middle school students currently attend the St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Jerome and Sacred Heart campuses while high school students attend the Oregon campus.

A governance board with representatives from all nine parishes in the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Deanery oversees the school system.

Last December, Fr. Reinhart presented a strategic plan developed by the board that called for the creation of a single campus for pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade Catholic education in the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Deanery. Fr. Reinhart estimated the plan would require a transition of one to two years.

Parents have since had the opportunity to weigh in on the plan, and “one of the clear messages was that they wanted things sped up as fast as possible so that kids went through only one change and not two,” said Fr. Reinhart.

“We were already talking about the idea of a middle school the following year, but we decided to move it up a year so that at least those three grades would only have one transition,” he explained.

In addition to the middle school, Fr. Reinhart said the Kateri Catholic Academy is to have two elementary school campuses for students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade next year. St. Jerome is to become the Walbridge campus and St. Thomas Aquinas is to become the Toledo campus.

The Sacred Heart campus of the Kateri Catholic School System is to close at the end of this school year.

Staff members from the four existing campuses were notified Feb. 13 about the changes, which eliminate about 20 full-time equivalent positions, according to Fr. Reinhart. Teachers have the opportunity to reapply and interview for positions that have more than one candidate, and Fr. Reinhart said he expects decisions on those positions to be made by late March.

“Essentially, we’re educating half as many people as we did 10 years ago,” he said. “We’re really becoming more in tune with how many students we actually have.”

Fr. Reinhart said the reconfiguration is expected to save the Kateri Catholic School System $1 million in the first year.

It also provides middle school students with new opportunities, he added.

“They’ll be treated in a more age-appropriate way,” Fr. Reinhart said. “More and more, high schools are becoming more like universities and middle schools are becoming more like high schools, so we have to adjust to that.”

Cardinal Stritch was originally designed with two wings to separate girls from boys when it opened, and Fr. Reinhart said the middle school is to occupy what used to be the girl’s side, and the high school is to occupy the old boy’s side and some of the common space between the two wings. Separate entrances are to be designated for middle and high school students.

The middle school students are to have their own classrooms, resource room and computer lab, along with easy access to shared areas like the cafeteria, gymnasium and library.

Fr. Reinhart said a plan has also been proposed to renovate and expand the library in the high school, "essentially creating a student union" with group study rooms, a cafe and wireless Internet access where students could spend time before and after school. 

The middle school students “will be able to take advantage of some of the amenities of the high school campus and some of the classes that are available, without mixing directly with the high school students,” said Fr. Reinhart.

The middle school is to be called the Kateri Catholic Academy — Oregon Campus.

Fr. Reinhart said Cardinal Stritch is retaining its name because so many of its students come from outside of the deanery. “We wanted its own identity” for incoming students who did not attend the Kateri Catholic Academy, he explained.

All students in the Kateri Catholic School System are to share the same mascot — the cardinal — and their school colors are to be red and black.

Kateri Catholic School System is hosting open houses at its elementary and middle schools in March: Kateri Catholic Academy — Walbridge Campus is March 15, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Kateri Catholic Academy — Toledo Campus is March 15, 12-2 p.m.; and Kateri Catholic Academy — Oregon Campus is March 22, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

During the 2009-2010 school year, Fr. Reinhart said the Kateri Catholic School System plans to conduct feasibility studies to develop a plan for bringing all students onto the Oregon campus in the future.

“We presented a vision that said that pre-K through 12 education would happen on one campus, so we’ll be working with that vision in mind,” said Fr. Reinhart.