Does anyone else find it interesting that there are no LDS parochial schools? Catholics & Evangelicals have them. It seems there would be a market for them.

I think they once had a high school in Mexico (what about other 'developing countries'?)


they probably had church schools in Mexico when the polygs fled the U.S. earlier in history, but they probably weren't 'formal' or have professional faculty.


History of IMW schools in church-heavy communities?
I'm sure a ID - UT - AZ educational historian could enlighten us, there should be lots of documentation regarding when gov't took over education.

I'm guessing that in places Mormons predominate, the public schools (with adjacent seminary buildings) are for all intents and purposes Mormon schools.

In places where Mormons don't predominate, there is probably not enough critical mass to form a private school. Plus, it might be difficult for Mormons to afford private schools given their large families, tithing, etc.

Oh, but there ARE LDS church schools, at least in the Phoenix area where there are three. The are called "charter schools" and are public (??!!) known as Heritage Schools. Teachers and all students and curriculum are about as LDS as you can get without causing too much uproar. Any non-LDS students who show up by mistake are quickly gotten rid of one way or another. IMHO, this should NOT be allowed!

They had them in Samoa and New Zealand as well. The "Church College of' stuff were essentially high schools with connected elementary schools. In parts of Polynesia, "college" meant "high school." BYU-Hawaii was changed from "Church College of Hawaii' to a branch of the BYU system because Polynesians would go home with four-year degrees from Church College of Hawaii, and prospective employers would look at their diplomas and say, "Big deal! You graduated from high school!"

It's not easy to run a quality elementary school at a profit, or to break even. With high school it's even harder. Because in the morridor, where the bulk of the church's population resided, the church essentially controlled the schools forever without having to fork over a cent of church money in order to do so, officially church-operated schools were unneeded. The church was already operating the schools. The precedent was therefore for a lack of need. Home-schooling, except among fundies, was rare then as well. Home-schooling among the LDS became trendy far later among the LDS population than among fundamental Christians, particularly Independent Baptists.

Now that the church no longer has the control it once exercised over public schools (although in most areas in the morridor the Church still wields considerable power through LDS-dominated school boards, and as a result, LDS-dominated administration and faculty) the infrastructure for church-operated schools is not in place. And running schools is a headache, one the brethren may not wish to take upon themselves.

The church cared and continues to care a little less about members too far out into the mission field. Many of the members in the mission field hisotorically lacked a whole lot of means as well. Tithing and fast offerings alone were maxing the families. If they had to pay for kids' education (let's face it: the church wasn't about to provide it for free) they couldn't meet their expenses.

The one place I'm a bit surprised the church never tried to put a church-based educational system into place is southern California. There are and have been for some time a large number of LDS church members there. (In such a huge population base, and in the western portion of the nation, there is bound to be.) If the church were to have instituted a church-based school system, southern California would have been the place to implement it. Still, the logistics would have been tough. The church wouldn't foot the bill. Tuition would be required. If tuition were a flat rate and close to as much as it cost to cover expenses, many families wouldn't be able to afford it. This could cause a sort of class war within stakes of the church. If tuition were graduated based on income and family size, some of the wealthiest would opt out, figuring they could get more for their money from comparable private schools, or even more for no money at all from their neighborhood schools, considering that wealthy neighborhoods often have high-quality schools (especially pre-Proposition 13 or whichever proposition it was that took tax revenues from the local school base and threw it into a state-wide pot, dividing it up in a way the state thought was fair). Without the upper tier of income earners buying into the system, it couldn't be funded. Still, if church-operated schools were to work, so Cal was the logical place to implement them.

And what about teachers? The church frowns upon mothers working full-time out of the home. Would the church want to pay male teachers enough so that they could support their families? in Utah, teachers aren't well-paid, so it might not be hard to lure some of the better teachers into the system. In California, however, in many districts, teachers with master's degrees and 15+ years of experience are earning close to or in excess of $100,000 annually. would the church really pay that kind of money?

I could see them calling kids right out of college to serve 2-year missions teaching for church schools - perhaps even encouraging young men on occasion to defer their missions until they had graduated. They could also hire (or call) uncredentialed teachers and pay them less or, in the case of calling them, nothing. How, then could , they pretend their schools were quality institutions unders such conditions?

Now in Utah we're seeing some charter schools, which can boast LDS values (MAYBE) but otherwise cannot teach religion, and some private academies with pricy tuition that essentially brand themselves as LDS schools without the official sanction of the church. It's probably mainly a way for the wealthy to keep their kids away from the riff-raff, adding a peculiar LDS twist to it.

I'm surprised there aren't more LDS-based charter schools in California. They couldn't keep non-LDS out, but there would be subtle ways of discouraging the 'undesirable' non-LDS from attempting to enroll. They would be closely scrutinized to ensure that religious content was being kept out of the curriculum and that religious discrimination wasn't happening, but it would be a way to segregate LDS children from the riff-raff. The main hurdle is that the charter school would need to apply the same strict behavior standards to the LDS children as to the non-LDS children, or the local supervising agency and state would be all over them , potentially depriving them of their charter. And we KNOW that, while they might not have quite the same rate of bringing weapons or drugs to scool (though it happens), LDS children are not innately better-behaved than other children. many Mormons have too many children to parent them all effectively. You would have as much or more defiance of authority at such a school, as it's become not uncommon among Mormon parents to excuse great deal of strong-willed behavior, saying nonsense like "these spirits born in the Last Days are a different breed, They're STRONGER, you know." I think tere's even a name for them. They call them "Saturday's Children," or something like that.

I was recently elected to the local school board.Schools and their regulations are on my mind almost as much as is my day job.

[|] Wrote:
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> http://www.byhigh.org/


Was it in SLC, or in the old BYU buildings in downtown Provo?

It was in Provo.

From the linked article:

"The original 1891 BY Academy building has now been beautifully renovated and serves as the flagship of the beautiful Provo City Library at Academy Square. Sadly, the other historic campus buildings were bulldozed. As alumni of Brigham Young High School, however, we're deeply grateful to every person and organization that worked so hard to save the most historic building on the old Lower Campus, and we support the mission of the Provo City Library at Academy Square."