Dad To Run Catholic Schools

May 4, 2001

BY CATHLEEN FALSANI RELIGION REPORTER

For the first time, Chicago's Roman Catholic Archdiocese has chosen a real father to head its school system.

Nicholas M. Wolsonovich, a father of three who heads the Catholic school system in Youngstown, Ohio, will be the new superintendent of Chicago's Catholic schools.

Set to start work here this summer, Wolsonovich, 57, will be the first parent and only the second lay person to lead the largest nonpublic school system in the nation, with more than 127,000 students.

He's also an outsider, which should be a plus for a school system that's battling financial problems and declining enrollment, Cardinal Francis George said Thursday in announcing his appointment.

"Precisely because he isn't from the inside, he will help us to see with fresh eyes," the cardinal said.

Wolsonovich has worked in Catholic education for more than 35 years and been superintendent of the Youngstown Catholic school system, which has 14,000 students, for 16 years.

He replaces Elaine Schuster, who left in December after 10 years to head the Golden Apple Foundation. She was the first lay person and second woman to head the Chicago system. Schuster announced last August that she was leaving, touching off a nationwide search to replace her that George said drew more than 60 applicants.

Wolsonovich, picked from three finalists, was an obvious choice, George said.

"He had done all his homework very, very well," the cardinal said. "He had really done it in such a way that, from the papers he received, he asked exactly the right questions.

"He brought a kind of aggressivity to it, in a good sense, an enthusiasm for meeting the challenge and taking it on."

Wolsonovich shares the cardinal's vision for Catholic education and how to fight the problems that face the schools.

"We are Catholic schools, and we need to be sure that we reflect that in everything we do," Wolsonovich said. "If we do that, I think the kids will come and the money will come. I really believe that."

George dismissed any suggestion that Chicago's Catholic school system might turn to charter schools as an option to keep struggling inner-city parochial schools open.

"Charter schools are public schools; they are not Catholic," he said. "We can't run a school where we are not free to mention God."

The archdiocese has been beset by financial problems in its inner-city and inner-ring suburban schools. In the past decade, the archdiocese has lost 21,790 students and closed 66 schools, and only two new schools have opened: Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, in 1996, and the Cardinal Joseph Bernardin school last fall. On average, the archdiocese has closed a half dozen schools a year for the past 20 years, George said.

After a self-imposed moratorium on school closings in 1999 and 2000, seven Catholic schools--including two high schools--have said they will close at the end of this school year. Four others plan to consolidate campuses.

"I know how important Catholic schools are in partnering with parents," said Wolsonovich, whose three children all attended Catholic schools. "My goal is to make schools as available as possible to as many kids as possible."