St. Jude opened its school doors in March of 1929. By 2011, when the state unveiled its voucher program, the school enrolled 479 students. That first year, a small number received vouchers: just 28.
Then something happened to the program that began a remarkable shift, not only at St. Jude but across the state.
Father Jake Runyon saw it happening and told his parishioners.
"We've been seeing some financial troubles here at St. Jude Parish," Runyon said in a formal presentation that was recorded in 2014 and posted on the church's website. The parish was in its third straight year of financial losses.
One big reason for the losses: The church was pouring money from its offertory into the school and neglecting repairs to its steeple and cooling system.
Then, Runyon shared the good news: After an attempt by the state teachers union to kill the young voucher program, Indiana's Supreme Court had found it constitutional, allowing families to spend public school dollars in private, religious schools. Not long after, the program was expanded dramatically to include children who had never attended a public school. Suddenly, many St. Jude students qualified.
All they had to do was apply.
"The effect on that this year," Runyon told parishioners in 2014, "it would have been $118,000 of money we just left there, that the state of Indiana wanted to give me, and we weren't able to take advantage of it."
Runyon's presentation since taken down from the church's website was a pitch for a new way of distributing financial aid to St. Jude students, one that would maximize the money coming in through vouchers and allow the parish to use more of its offertory elsewhere.
