A Catholic school teacher teaches an academic curriculum at a parish, diocesan or religious-order school, taking part in the faith life of the school where its mission calls for it.
NCES counted 134,859 FTE teachers in US Catholic schools in 2021–22, and NCEA counted 151,513 FTE professional staff in 2025–26.
State certification rules vary by state, and faith-related expectations are set by the diocese or school that hires you.
What does a Catholic school teacher do?
Catholic school teachers plan and teach academic subjects — English, math, science, history, world languages, the arts — at K-12 schools operated by parishes, dioceses, religious orders and independent Catholic organizations.
Levels split unevenly.
NCEA counted 4,644 elementary and middle schools against 1,185 secondary schools in 2025–26, out of 5,829 Catholic schools nationwide.
Staffing also splits by level: the NCES Digest of Education Statistics, compiling NCEA data, recorded 147,849 instructional staff in 2022–23 — 97,040 in elementary schools and 50,810 in secondary schools.
Where the role includes religion, the job pairs academic teaching with the school's faith mission:
- Academic teaching: planning and teaching your subject or grade-level curriculum, assessing student work and communicating with families.
- Religion and theology classes: teaching the school's religion curriculum where the assignment includes it; at secondary schools this can be a dedicated theology department.
- Faith life: participation in the school's liturgies, retreats and service programs, where the role includes them.
- Formation expectations: whatever the employing diocese asks of religion teachers, set diocese by diocese.
NCEA reports a student-to-teacher ratio of 11.1:1 across US Catholic schools in 2025–26 — a system-wide ratio, not a class-size measure.
The workforce is sizable: NCEA counted 151,513 full-time-equivalent professional staff in US Catholic schools in 2025–26.
Where the numbers on this page come from
Parish, diocesan and religious-order schools
Catholic schools are not a single employer, and NCES's Private School Universe Survey sorts them into three governance types.
In 2021–22 there were 1,789 parochial schools, 3,247 diocesan schools and 1,086 private Catholic schools — the order-run and independent end of the sector.
The three names describe who sits above the school: a parochial school is a parish's school; a diocesan school is a diocese's; and "private" Catholic schools are the order-run and independent end of the sector.
Catholic education is also a large slice of US private schooling.
NCES counted 6,122 Roman Catholic schools in 2021–22 — 20.6% of US private schools — enrolling 1,665,003 students (35.2% of private school students) and employing 134,859 FTE teachers (27.9% of private school FTE teachers).
Two national counts circulate, and they are not directly comparable: NCES's Private School Universe Survey counted 6,122 Catholic schools in 2021–22, while NCEA counted 5,829 in 2025–26, a count that includes pre-kindergarten enrollment.
Read each figure with its source and year.
Networks organize part of the sector.
The Jesuit Schools Network supports 90 Jesuit pre-secondary and secondary member schools serving more than 55,000 students across the United States and Canada.
The Cristo Rey Network counts 41 career-focused, college-preparatory Catholic schools enrolling 13,000 students and sponsored by 34 religious orders, dioceses and other sponsoring groups.
Do you have to be Catholic?
There is no single answer: faith-background expectations are set diocese by diocese, parish by parish and school by school, and the policies differ across the sector.
The workforce composition tells part of the story: NCEA reports that 92.8% of the sector's 151,513 FTE professional staff in 2025–26 are lay professionals, with religious sisters, brothers and clergy accounting for 2.5%.
Composition is not a requirement, though — those figures describe who works in Catholic schools, not what any school asks of its applicants.
Enrollment adds a related signal: 372,244 Catholic school students — 22.2% of the sector's total — were non-Catholic in 2025–26.
That figure describes students, not hiring.
Federal law frames the question.
Title VII's Section 702 says the federal employment-discrimination law does not apply to a religious corporation, association, educational institution or society with respect to employing individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with its activities.
A second provision, Section 703(e)(2), permits a school to hire employees of a particular religion when the school is owned, supported, controlled or managed in whole or substantial part by a particular religion, or when its curriculum is directed toward propagating that religion.
The Supreme Court's ministerial exception adds another layer.
In Our Lady of Guadalupe School (2020), the Court barred employment-discrimination claims by two Catholic elementary school teachers because they performed vital religious duties such as educating students in the faith — even though their titles did not include the word minister.
The Court's test is functional: what matters is what an employee does.
Practically, don't try to infer it from workforce numbers: check the posting for any faith, practice or formation expectation for the role, and ask the school or diocese before you apply.
Career information, not legal advice
Certification and catechist requirements
Two systems touch a Catholic school teacher's credentials, and neither is national.
The first is the state.
Catholic schools are private schools — NCES counts them among US private schools — and state certification rules for private school teachers are set state by state.
The state education agency is the body that states them, including how they apply to a given school.
The second is the Church's own: religion-teacher requirements are set diocese by diocese, separate from any state certificate.
One example: the Diocese of Raleigh requires all teachers of Religion in its Catholic schools to complete its Basic Catechist Certification for Catholic School Teachers within the first year or two of hire, with three components — Catholic doctrine, catechetical methodology and Catholic school culture.
In the Diocese of Raleigh, teachers who do not teach Religion, or are not Catholic, complete a four-hour 'Mission and Culture of Catholic Schools' course instead, and once certified there is no requirement to renew.
Requirements, levels and renewal differ by diocese.
Confirm both before you apply: the state education agency answers the certification question for the state you will work in, and the diocese or school answers the faith-formation question for the role you are applying to.
Rules change — confirm before you apply
How hiring works through the diocese
Who hires you follows the governance type: where a diocese runs a school system, its education or schools office may post openings across that system; a parish school may hire through the parish itself; order-run and independent schools hire for their own faculties.
In practice, search all three tracks: the diocesan schools office job board for system schools, the career pages of individual parish, order-run and independent schools, and national job boards that carry Catholic school listings.
Applications ask what any teaching application asks — a resume, references, and a demo lesson where a school requests one — plus any faith-related materials the school asks applicants to provide.
Pay scales, benefits and employment terms sit with the diocese or the school, so the same role can look different one diocese over.
Whatever the route, prepare for interview questions that reach past your subject to how you would carry the school's faith mission.
Pay and benefits
Catholic schools pay as individual employers: where a diocese publishes a salary scale it covers its system, an order-run or independent school sets its own, and pay can differ by diocese, school, grade level and region.
Our research found no current national pay series that isolates Catholic school teachers.
Benefits come with the contract or handbook — ask what the employer's provides.
Where a school offers tuition remission for faculty children, the school's own policy governs its terms.
For any actual opening, the honest source for pay is the posting itself or the diocesan schools office — ask for the current scale rather than a national average.
Find Catholic school teacher jobs
NCEA's 2025–26 infographic reports 88% teacher retention in Catholic schools, with 13 schools opened and 62 closed or consolidated in the same year.
Year over year, NCEA counted 1,683,506 PK–12 students in 5,852 Catholic schools in 2024–25, and 5,829 schools in 2025–26 — a net loss of 23 schools.
That year-over-year count and the infographic's opened and closed figures are separate NCEA releases that do not reconcile, so read each on its own.
Demand for seats remains part of the picture: 2,189 Catholic schools reported admission waitlists in 2025–26.
Where to look: diocesan school office job boards, the career pages of parish, order-run and independent schools, and our Catholic school teacher job listings, which collect openings in one place.
If you sit on the hiring side, schools, parishes and dioceses can post a Catholic school job through SchoolHires' hiring hub.
Before you sign anything, close three loops: the state's certification question with the state education agency, the diocese's formation expectations with the diocesan schools office, and the school's own faith-related expectations with the school itself.
Career information, not legal, tax or immigration advice; certification and religion-teacher requirements are set by your state education agency and your diocese or school, and employment-law questions belong with counsel or the EEOC.