parochial school

[Victor Steinbok]

On 4/6/2011 9:35 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> [JJJRL]
wrote:
> Hasn't it occurred to anyone that "catholic parochial" (note the
> lower-case) is an oxymoron?

Well, it would be interesting to see how many hits we get for "Catholic
parochial schools" vs. "Catholic schools". There are some problems--many
of the "CPS" hits are spurious, including two Wiki articles on
"Parochial schools" and "Catholic schools", one Belgian acronym
unpacking (KODB - Katholiek Onderwijs Dekenaat Bilzen), Answers.com,
several schools that use "parochial" in parenthesis (i.e., "Catholic
(Parochial) School", or vice versa), etc. In toto, there are 196K raw
ghits. Some are on point:

http://goo.gl/VFDYe
> Welcome to St. Patrick’s School. We are the Catholic parochial school
> of St. Patrick’s Parish in Bedford, NY, affiliated with the
> Archdiocese of New York, and accredited by the Middle States
> Association of Schools.

So it may be an oxymoron, but it does exist. But contrast this with the
"CS" search: 8.58M raw ghits. That's an appreciable difference.
"Lutheran PS" gets 71K, "Lutheran School" 3.8M; "Jewish PS" 13900,
"Hebrew PS" 6470.

> [JJJRL] A reason for using "parochial school": if you said "religious
> school" your listener might think of Sunday School, Jewish "Hebrew
> schools" which meet in the afternoon or evening to give one or two
> classes in Hebrew and Judaica, vacation Bible Schools, etc.

Exactly like a conversation I had with a friend.

Friend: "My son now goes to Hebrew school"
Me: "Oh? I didn't know they had one in Milwaukee or nearby."
F: "No, no. He goes on Tuesdays at the temple for bar-mitzvah lessons."

> [JJJRL] Another oddity: many Jewish parochial schools have a separate
> department for the teaching of secular subjects known as the "English
> department" even though it teaches math, history, etc.

I went through two years of that. But the division was into "Hebrew
subjects" and "Academic subjects", not English. There are four separate
departments for each set. (I just checked the website and the
departments are listed, and the morning/afternoon division are now
described as "Judaic Studies Subjects" and "General Studies
Subjects"--of course, it's at least three principals removed from my
time there. The current Student Handbook [PDF] has the same divisions.)

There is also this little gem:

> Students who miss (“ditch”) class without permission from
> a parent or administrator will suffer an automatic loss of a grade
> symbol for the quarter (i.e., A- to B+) and any work for that day
> will be assigned an automatic “0”.

"Loss of a grade symbol"? Note that it's contrasted with "loss of a full
grade" (e.g., A to B) for other offenses.

Late arrivals are referred to as "tardies"--does that mean that those
who are guilty of the violation are "tards"?

VS-)

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