I am so bummed and very annoyed at the powers to be for announcing this 4 days before the state semi final football game . Although they are heavy underdogs by almost every HS football expert, I for one believe they have a shot to win if the refs call a fair game. McD has many good underclass players that will be looking for a new home. LBs Bridgeman and Pergine are both studs and Emmanual seiu is a super receiver. Some team will be glad to welcome them and a slew of others . So damn sad.
Bishop McDevitt shutting down for good at years end
- Thread starter lilromeo
- Start date
Sorry to hear the news. My mother went to Hallahan and some of my cousins to McDevitt. I read that 25% of Catholic schools in the U.S. will likely close by summer 2022, at least partly because of COVID.
I really feel for the kids in all the grades at McDevitt. I'm assuming some of the freshman boys will go to LaSalle with maybe a smaller number going to SJP. But most will go to a public school. Am I right? Can't imagine many travelling to Wood or Judge.
SJP doesn't take any student after 8th grade. But there's always LaSalle 10 minutes away. 🤔
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SC is going for a state record for victories and would be concerned that playing up there could influence some things if the game possibly is close. If you watched the Dunmore /McD game two weeks ago you would see some ridiculous things from the guys in stripes up there. SC hasnt needed any help in the past -just sayin .
Some of the local McD athletes have chosen to take the train to Roman in the past. This latest group has many choices to include LaSalle, Imhotep ,Wood, Northeast,, Cheltenham, Abington ,and Springfield ,
As far as I know, SJP has never taken senior transfers, but they certainly have taken some after freshman and even sophmore year: Jacob O'Connell (B-ball, now at Princeton), Ed Crosswell (B-ball, now at Providence), Benny Walls (played football at Temple), Chris Whitney (played football at Villanova) and Sal Cinaglia (played football at Bloomsburg).
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Speed and Jump DR stated in another related post that "SJP traditionally doesn't take transfers after 9th grade".Now it's just seniors. - Wood STILL IS accepting transfers!!!! And they aren't happy about their reclassification? LOL
My mother went there, as well, Tulla.
The second thought I had was where would these kids go to school next year. There's a solid football and basketball program at McDevitt currently. If these kids do choose to go to Wood or Cheltenham do they count as transfers that will affect their classification? I'm not questioning the fact that they are, indeed, transfers, but the circumstances are a little unusual.
Anyone who said SJP never accepts transfers is just wrong, obviously. What's true is that they rarely accept transfers--never after junior year, very rarely after sophomore year, and almost as rarely after freshman year. In fact, they lose many more students, including student-athletes, to transfer than they get.
Each situation also needs to be looked at separately Whitney, for instance, went to a Jesuit high school in, I think, Kansas for freshman year but after his father died the family moved to Philly and he started sophomore year at the Prep.
I'm not aware of anyone on the current Prep football team who didn't start high school at the Prep. Someone may correct me that player x came after freshman year, but the general point remains.
LaSalle and SJP are closer. Why would they go to Wood?
I get it their school is closing, but this whole transfer situation stinks to high heaven.
Everyone knows Souderton is going to get rolled by SJP unless they hold the score down.
Wood has a player that that went to wood in 9th grade, left for Wm Tennant (up the street), became 2nd team all conference LB as a soph and transfered back to wood for his jr year. You cant tell me that both parties werent thinking football.
Its not good for the game!
SJP and Wood are almost the same exact distance from McDevitt. Back in the day your Willow Grove/Abington area kids would be between McDevitt and Wood. Wood and McDevitt were probably considered somewhat rivals in the old North days. Now Wood and McDevitt compete for the same kids in the Mount Airy Oak Lane neighborhoods along 309/Cheltenham Ave. I'm pretty sure there is a SEPTA line that picks kids up in that area and drops them off right at Wood. From the things I had heard McDevitt was even "winning" some of those recruiting battles for those kids because they were offering better financial aid.
As far as transfers go, they shouldn't count against the count as they are being forced to find a new school. What the PIAA actually will do is harder to predict though. Remember Wood only had to move up because the PIAA changed the transfer rule twice in the middle of the season. Had only one or neither of the changes been made in emergency meetings Wood would still be playing 5A. So I would guess if any McDevitt kids were to wind up at Wood they would count against their transfer number and kept in 6A. I have also heard the new coach at Wood has a different opinion on transfers than the previous coach so I see them staying at 6A with or without McDevitt kids
As far as transfers go, they shouldn't count against the count as they are being forced to find a new school. What the PIAA actually will do is harder to predict though. Remember Wood only had to move up because the PIAA changed the transfer rule twice in the middle of the season. Had only one or neither of the changes been made in emergency meetings Wood would still be playing 5A. So I would guess if any McDevitt kids were to wind up at Wood they would count against their transfer number and kept in 6A. I have also heard the new coach at Wood has a different opinion on transfers than the previous coach so I see them staying at 6A with or without McDevitt kids
I haven't really asked around about Judge in the past couple of years. During the last few years of McKay's time there I was told that Judge would never be able to contend because the admin just doesn't care about the program so I stopped bothering to ask. There's always the rumors about going private, but that rumor is over a decade old. I would guess they have a longer life span than most archdiocese schools because the city dynamic is different than the suburbs and Ryan is struggling so much. I hear mostly about Wood, maybe CB West every once in a while.
For anyone who knows.
Who decides what Catholic schools get closed?
Why doesnt Catholic schools have bounderies like the Public schools?
Who decides what Catholic schools get closed?
Why doesnt Catholic schools have bounderies like the Public schools?
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Thanks for the info and your perspective. It wasn't all that long ago (2008-2011) that Judge had consistently good teams--though maybe some consider that a long time ago.!
For anyone who knows.
Who decides what Catholic schools get closed?
Why doesnt Catholic schools have bounderies like the Public schools?
Who decides what Catholic schools get closed?
Why doesnt Catholic schools have bounderies like the Public schools?
I think the PCL model is just harder and harder to sustain every year. Tuition is constantly rising, financial aid and assistance is harder to come by, public school option in the suburbs, almost all of your competitive advantages are gone. The only teams that can compete with Prep in terms of resources are LaSalle and the Inter Ac, but those schools don't seem to have the commitment level that Prep has. This isn't inside info, but I would guess there is a good reason that Wood's last two coaches decided to leave when they did. I just don't see a D3 school as this amazing opportunity that is too good to pass up as the only reason to leave a top 2 program in the state.
Philadelphia Public Schools allow open enrollment just like Archdiocese schools. My guess would be it comes down to money. Philadelphia Public schools are operated by one school district so the cost is all the same. I believe the rule is if there are open seats in a school any Philadelphia resident can apply for that open seat and the decision is made from there. I think more than half of the students in Philly Public schools attend a school that is outside of their designated school. Archdiocese relies on tuition, so they are not turning away someone's money. The archdiocese makes the decision to close the school.
"The decision was made after a sustainability study examined enrollment, demographic trends, finances, and more, officials said. Hallahan is currently operating at 36% capacity and McDevitt at 40% capacity."
"The decision was made after a sustainability study examined enrollment, demographic trends, finances, and more, officials said. Hallahan is currently operating at 36% capacity and McDevitt at 40% capacity."
All the schools in the PCL, except for SJP, LaSalle, and Devon Prep, are run by the Archdiocese. Once all the elementary schools had boundaries the same as the parishes had. The high schools also had designated elementary feeder schools. The key was that the school system was funded largely--and I mean almost completely--by collections at Sunday masses. It was also the case that many of the teachers were nuns, priests, and brothers--their small salaries went to their communities.
What happened is that whole world gradually disappeared. The Catholic population spread out; mass attendance--and donations--plummeted. Schools (e.g. West Catholic, North Catholic, Dougherty, etc.) that once had lots of Catholics living nearby either closed or had to change their mandates and offerings. No school could offer everything, so they customized. This meant that, as with the Philadelphia public schools, the old boundaries had to go.
I actually can explain this process pretty thoroughly. All 8th graders in Philadelphia are required to apply to high school. Kids are apply to a maximum of five public schools (outside of the charter system - and they don't need to apply to their zoned public school). Applications are measured by PSSA scores, 7th grade transcripts, behavior and attendance data, and essays. There are four tiers of selectivity (in descending order)-
1. Special Admission Schools (Central, Parkway, Masterman, etc.)
2. City Wide Admission Schools (SLA, Carver, FLC, etc.)
3. Any zoned public school that isn't yours
4. Your zoned public school
Every student is guaranteed a seat the public school in your zone, but you can apply to seats at another one. Those applications get reviewed for acceptance, and schools are not required to accept students even if they have open seats. Academically, George Washington and Northeast get a lot of out-of-zone applications because they are the only zoned public school that have IB Curriculums, and Frankford has a specialty career prep program (you can get your pilot's license at Frankford, for example) that gives it a greater than average out-of-zone kids.
The city wide and special admission schools don't have any geography they pull from and 100% of their students come from the application process. Special Admissions are particularly selective, require recommendations, and often have additional criteria beyond the application process (Masterman, for example, requires 2 years of a foreign language for admission). City Wide Schools are often speciality programs (Science Leadership Academy, GW Carver School of Engineering, Dobbins Tech, etc.) or offer a wider array of things like AP courses compared to local schools. So while yes, it's true that greater than 50% of the kids in the city don't go to their local school, more than 50% of the high schools (27 of 49) in the city are not local schools.
Getting on my soapbox for a second - one of the issues in the system is that the zoned local public schools are schools of last resort. Any kid in those zones who can get in anywhere else will go somewhere else, so what has happened is the local public schools have exclusively become places for students who did not get admitted elsewhere (save for the ones I mentioned above). So by design, they have the weakest students in the city, then get dubbed "failing schools".
You always have the right to apply to the PIAA for a transfer hardship. As a general rule, if a private school kid transfers back to his/her home public school due to a hardship ( dad lost his job and cannot afford tuition), those transfers are looked at more favorably than the student transferring from one private school to another. So I would think that if you live in Cheltenham or Abington but go to McDevitt, those kids returning to Cheltenham/Abington would meet the hardship criteria. But if they went from McDevitt to Wood, etc that would be more scrutinized.
The smart thing to do, if the closing is definite, is to transfer NOW. It gets the clock ticking one year sooner. If a sophomore transfers before the half way point of the school year ( January 2021?) he is a sophomore transferring. If he waits until after the school year is over ( June 2021) he is classified as a junior transfer. The PIAA penalty for juniors are much more severe than for sophomores.
The smart thing to do, if the closing is definite, is to transfer NOW. It gets the clock ticking one year sooner. If a sophomore transfers before the half way point of the school year ( January 2021?) he is a sophomore transferring. If he waits until after the school year is over ( June 2021) he is classified as a junior transfer. The PIAA penalty for juniors are much more severe than for sophomores.
I think it would be considered a transfer for Wood because the PIAA wants to come down hard on Private schools. The message was loud and clear last year. The transfer rule started at 5 or 6 I believe? Then they moved it down to 3 transfers, and I want to say they did that in October? I know it was during the season for sure. Then the day of the state championship game the PIAA had another emergency meeting, or an emergency vote at a scheduled meeting. The vote was to change a rule again, Wood decided to classify as a 4A based on enrollment and be moved up to 5A if determined they had too many transfers. PIAA was furious, and voted that if a team needed to be moved up it would be from the classification they were playing in, not from their classification based on enrollment.
I don't know that the hardship rule matters all that much for classification. I believe a Wood transfer was ruled eligible for the playoffs last year due to ability to prove hardship was reason for transfer. However that player did count towards the total transfer number for the reclassification. I don't know how you could justify a kid going to a public school is a hardship but a catholic school is not a hardship when the reason for transfer is school closure and not financial. Any attempt to say that would be right up there with last years bs rule changes from PIAA.
I don't know that the hardship rule matters all that much for classification. I believe a Wood transfer was ruled eligible for the playoffs last year due to ability to prove hardship was reason for transfer. However that player did count towards the total transfer number for the reclassification. I don't know how you could justify a kid going to a public school is a hardship but a catholic school is not a hardship when the reason for transfer is school closure and not financial. Any attempt to say that would be right up there with last years bs rule changes from PIAA.
I think it is the same overall problem as Judge. The demographic changed some which leads to less people going to catholic school, financial reasons also playing a part. I know people have said Frank did a good job of getting decent players, and he was always competitive throughout the years. They beat Wood and Prep one season when both of those teams each won a state title. But those same people who said he did a great job getting kids, say those kids got worn down playing there, some quit and others transferred.
Like tulla said, catholic school population has become more and more spread out. Those families are also having less kids, and don't value catholic education like the used to. Less students = more tuition to cover cost. But the tuition has gotten so high that they're beginning to price themselves out.
Why would anyone pay $8150 per year for a catholic school in the suburbs when the public school system is so good in those areas? I talked to one parent who said by the time fees add up you are paying at least $10k a year. The city schools might offer a better education, but the financial burden is too much.
Like tulla said, catholic school population has become more and more spread out. Those families are also having less kids, and don't value catholic education like the used to. Less students = more tuition to cover cost. But the tuition has gotten so high that they're beginning to price themselves out.
Why would anyone pay $8150 per year for a catholic school in the suburbs when the public school system is so good in those areas? I talked to one parent who said by the time fees add up you are paying at least $10k a year. The city schools might offer a better education, but the financial burden is too much.
Sorry to hear that lil. My wife is saddened/angered hearing of any Catholic school closing being a Notre Dame grad here in Delco. Someone will be well improved getting those guys. Lancers aren't a bad team if they can take the first few punches playing a legit team like Southern who while strong....is not last year's team. Richland's good group gave them a game last week til folding in the 2nd half. So we're all Lancer fans Saturday!
How things have changed. Cardinal Dougherty used to be the largest High School in the US. 6000 students. Gone!!
The shame of it all is back in the day the city championship was a BIG deal,
I remember wood won it in the "74" season. They were so proud...it meant someting,
CBW were champions in the buxmont league and I believe Tennant was champions also , so the talent was spread around.
The system has failed in the catholic and Phila public leagues with few powerhouses.
I can see the day where students lose interest in football at certain schools due to being a perenial loser or the powers to be see them as losers and not worth the cost.. Then youll have the haters who will preasure districts and say football is too dangerous only to get more funding for Buffy's badmton team.
Its gotta be fixed and fast.
I remember wood won it in the "74" season. They were so proud...it meant someting,
CBW were champions in the buxmont league and I believe Tennant was champions also , so the talent was spread around.
The system has failed in the catholic and Phila public leagues with few powerhouses.
I can see the day where students lose interest in football at certain schools due to being a perenial loser or the powers to be see them as losers and not worth the cost.. Then youll have the haters who will preasure districts and say football is too dangerous only to get more funding for Buffy's badmton team.
Its gotta be fixed and fast.
Hey Paul, my brother played freshman football at Dougherty before transferring to McDevitt when it opened. He was McD first QB. At CD he told me over 250 kids went out for FRESHMAN football , unbelievable!!! He told me they took the biggest ,baddest kids and had no pads scrimmages and practices on the asphalt parking lot and those that survived made the team . HaHaHa those were the days !
Of the 8 schools who were told to play up this season, only 2 were private, 6 were public.
CD had leather helmets for (some) of their freshman team in 1971 not Simpson thou
Lil, that reminded me of our calling out Gettysburg College frats to a pickup game (10th, 11th grades?) usually TKE or Crow calling them worms (bookworms), them calling us townies, usually with a verb in front of it. We’d play anywhere, the old field by the student union bldg or the black top by the sports complex. Black cut off sweat shirt, old long sleeve white shirts thinking we looked pretty good for the girls at the SUB. Broke my nose tackling the college running back, guys said it looked ok but when you look down and see the side of your nose!? Fun times.
lilromeo you are right, there were other schools that closed between then too, for whatever reason I was only thinking back to 2010
Relayer - the rule was put into place to try and prevent the transfers happening with the private and charter schools. My issue isn't so much with the rule or the effort to put an end to it, but the way they did it. The original rule was 5 transfers then in October it was switched to 3. I know for a fact Wood started turning kids away after they had 4. I also know that the PIAA had a meeting the day of Wood's state championship to change the other rule to say the team is moved up from their current playing class, and not their enrollment class. Wood also argued the hardship rules for 2 of the transfers in their appeal and it was denied.
Relayer - the rule was put into place to try and prevent the transfers happening with the private and charter schools. My issue isn't so much with the rule or the effort to put an end to it, but the way they did it. The original rule was 5 transfers then in October it was switched to 3. I know for a fact Wood started turning kids away after they had 4. I also know that the PIAA had a meeting the day of Wood's state championship to change the other rule to say the team is moved up from their current playing class, and not their enrollment class. Wood also argued the hardship rules for 2 of the transfers in their appeal and it was denied.
For the McDevitt players to transfer to LaSalle or The Prep, I'm assuming they would have to pass the entrance exam, true?
I used to live in an area close to LaSalle and Germantown Academy and knew kids who played at both schools. My impression was that the entrance requirements at GA were higher than LaSalle but I could be wrong.
For the SJP people, are the requirements to get into The Prep higher than LaSalle?
The Prep and LaSalle have an entrance exam but only for students in 8th grade. The exam results are not the only things the admission offices look at--just as SAT scores are not the only things colleges look at. Prep people and LaSalle people will probably differ over which school has higher entrance requirements. There are students who are accepted at one but not the other.
In deciding whether to admit an applicant after he's already started high school elsewhere, the Prep looks mainly at how well the student has done at the other school AND at how comparable the curricula and standards are. In most but not all cases, the transferring students have done fine in terms of academics.
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