Enrollment at the St. Thomas Aquinas School in Lakewood is up about 14 percent over 2007, and there are waiting lists for most grades. The school has enrolled about 890 students for the fall semester, up from 830 last year and 780 two years ago, said Joyce Limber, development director for the Catholic grade school.
“It was all part of our strategic growth plan,” Limber said. “None of it has come as a surprise, but we have adapted to it.” The school added a sixth and fifth grade class, so now there are four classes in grades five through eight. Kindergarten through fourth grades still have three classes each, but the school’s goal is to have four classes each in K through 8.
St. Thomas Aquinas School fall enrollment numbers:
2009 890 approximately
2008 830
2007 780
Read more about enrollment growth at St. Thomas Aquinas School after the jump.
The school has high retention rates, Limber said. That’s because many of the school’s students are accepted to Catholic high schools, and parents like the sense of community that the school fosters. St. Thomas Aquinas church is growing, and the neighborhood is home to a lot of young Catholic families.
“I think young families look for the best schools for their children and get them in as soon as possible,” Limber said. “It used to be that a school was a school was a school, but nowadays, parents are smart customers.”
The school’s growth also could be due in part to the struggling economy. St. Thomas Aquinas School has one of the lowest tuition rates among private grade schools in Dallas. That’s because it’s a parish school, which means that the church subsidizes the school, and it gets money from fundraising. So the school’s tuition cost is much lower than the actual cost of educating a child there.
The 2009 tuition for a church member is $5,200 per academic year for the first child, with discounts for each additional child. If you have three children enrolled, the fourth is free, “because we don’t want to punish people for having large families,” Limber said. If there is space available, non-members can enroll children for $7,700 per year.
