Project Summary

This study investigates how Catholic elementary and secondary school leaders respond to organizational crises that have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the previous twenty years, the 2020-2021 academic year saw slight upticks in student enrollment across Catholic schools, often because these schools opened for in-person instruction where public schools did not. Using this unique moment as a way of making sense of how Catholic school leaders frame their organizational decision-making strategies, we will investigate in this study the tensions between solidarity and subsidiarity between Catholic school leaders, between Catholic and charter leaders, and between Catholic and district public school leaders.