Schools can keep good principals and teachers without fear the district will assign them elsewhere. Schools handle their own budgets and buy the services they need. In the central office in downtown Seattle, nine people oversee 63 schools with 17,000 students. The central office of Seattle Public Schools employs more than 500 people to oversee 100 public schools with 48,000 students. Catholic schools in Seattle's south end struggle to meet the ever-expanding emotional and health needs of the families they serve.
Principals agonize over ways to pay their teachers at rates comparable to public school salaries.
Firmly rooted as they are, these schools are vulnerable to neighborhood poverty in ways the public schools are not. Up to half the incomes of sponsoring parishes go to the schools. Parents often work two jobs to pay tuition. The Archdiocese of Seattle assists in emergencies, but its funds are spread among schools in 19 western Washington counties. The schools also get some subsidies in the form of teacher and parent volunteer work.