As many of our readers know, all the ChvChick progeny attend or plan to attend Cheverly's St. Ambrose School. The school and parish have experienced a certain amount of upheaval in the past few years, but we believe that the education that our children receive in this environment has been strong and that it is a good community. We're supporters of the school and want to see it -- and the parish -- succeed. Unfortunately, events of the past month have raised questions regarding the motives and the method of the Archdiocese in removing teachers to improve the troubling budget outlook. We understand that times are hard and that difficult decisions must be made. What troubles us is the manner in which these blows to the school community have been handled. The Archdiocese is not demonstrating the Catholic values that it espouses in this case, and it ignores its' responsibilities to the families of St. Ambrose School by denying the principal, Mrs. Carter, the ability to address these issues head on with the school community. We hope that the Archdiocese reconsiders this strategy very soon.Link to the Gazette Article by Natalie
McGillIf the puppets in Barbara Liston's family room could talk, they would ask the next time they'll meet a pair of tiny hands again.
Puppets, story sets and hundreds of books fill Liston's family room after
Cheverly's St. Ambrose Catholic School let her go in October from a kindergarten teacher position she held since 1985.
Liston, 61, of
Cheverly was called into a meeting with St. Ambrose Principal Dian Carter on Oct. 19 where she was told the school would let her go effective Nov. 6 because of a $90,000 deficit due to unexpected lower enrollment. She was offered six weeks' severance pay but said she did not want to accept until reviewing the package with a lawyer.
"It's ludicrous," Liston said Nov. 3. "Six weeks' pay is not going to help me. I want my job back."
Carter referred all comment to Kathy Dempsey, an Archdiocese of Washington spokeswoman.
Liston's position, which carried a $70,000 annual salary, was one of two that fell victim to the school's deficit. Liston said she was the highest-paid teacher at the school.
A science teacher position was also cut. Dempsey said the teacher had been at the school for about three years but did not provide her salary because it was confidential information.
Dempsey said 17 students who had registered prior to the beginning of the school year were later unable to attend because of economic reasons. Another blow was the loss of 15 current students who used to participate in the aftercare program.
She could not confirm the exact loss of tuition from these students, as tuition per student ranges based on factors such as multiple siblings attending and membership in the St. Ambrose parish. There are 244 students attending St. Ambrose and 28 staff members.
"Those families, as we all are, are struggling," Dempsey said. "So a lot of them are deciding, ‘We want to stay in a Catholic school, but we're going to try to find alternative arrangements for our children in the afternoon,' so that budget line was also diminished."
The layoff is the second blow to Liston this year. Liston's husband, David Liston, died of cancer at age 64 in March. Liston said she asked if she could take a salary cut to remain at the school but was denied.
"When they did this to me [I said], ‘You do realize my husband died seven months ago. This is leaving me without a livelihood,'" Liston said. "They said, ‘This is what the Archdiocese [of Washington] told us to do.'"
St. Ambrose is one of 96 Catholic schools under the Archdiocese of Washington, which includes Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George's and St. Mary's counties in addition to Washington, D.C., Dempsey said.
Dempsey could not say for certain if St. Ambrose is the only school in the archdiocese to let employees go this school year because of budgetary constraints.
"We're all in a struggle right now with the economy, and St. Ambrose found itself having to make some difficult decisions," Dempsey said. "But St. Ambrose is a very resilient, vibrant and faith-filled community so I know they are going to rally around the school in order to carry it forward."
The layoff is also a blow to community parents who see Liston as an educational institution in the town. Liston said she has taught more than 800 students during her tenure at St. Ambrose and has also served on the school's advisory board and as an assistant principal.
She had 18 students in her class at the time she was let go.
Tina Colbert of
Fairmount Heights said she is still "completely shocked" about Liston's departure. Five of Colbert's eight children had Liston as a teacher, but all have had some interaction in one way or another.
"She took a lot of pictures that went into the yearbook, ran a Web site for her kindergarten class, just a lot of advertisement," Colbert said. "She just offered so much more to the school than just running a small kindergarten class."
Many parents are buzzing about the cuts and wonder if they could have been made in other areas, such as making foreign language an elective course, Colbert said.
"When you're not put into the process on what parents want or what they don't want, that's when everyone can get a little upset and antsy about it," Colbert said.
For now Liston is grateful for her late husband's insurance from his job with the Smithsonian Institution, but she is too young to qualify for Social Security benefits and is unsure if she can still afford the monthly $1,600 mortgage payments on their three-bedroom
Cheverly home.
"It was just the two of us and we had just put an addition on our house to make it the place we were going to stay in our retirement," Liston said.
Though Liston said she wants her job back, she will consider other positions elsewhere if she can't return to St. Ambrose.
But it won't be in the archdiocese, she said.
"I'm sure they won't want me," Liston said.
