By LEAH WEATHERSBY

In North Seattle, more than 5,000 students currently attend private schools, according to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction's Office.

Of those schools, nearly 3,000 students attend religious schools, but not always for religious reasons, according to principals and administrators from several North Seattle faith-based schools who spoke recently with the Seattle Sun. In fact, at some the schools, more than 20 percent of the students are non-members of the school's particular faith community.

Fred McCarthy, co-principal of St. Benedict School, a K-8 Catholic school located at 4811 Wallingford Ave. N, cited several reasons why parents chose to enroll their children at St. Benedict School, including a system where the older children (middle school age) are expected to befriend and lead the littler kids. He said the system encourages students be more mature, but also allows them to stay children longer.

"I worked in many good public schools. I don't say Catholic schools have all the answers," McCarthy said. "In public school we always tried to teach kids to live together. In Catholic school we try to teach to what ends you should live."

McCarthy also mentioned a good art and technical program as well as a strong facility which attracts students.

Gary Madsen, chief administrator at Fairview Christian School, at 844 NE 78th in Maple Leaf, said that academics also attract kids to his school. Between 25 and 30 percent of Fairview's students do not attend Fairview Church. Madsen said Fairview's strengths include their small classroom size and their faculty, over half of whom hold graduate degrees.

So the question for parents who want to send their kids to a private school is, does sending children to an institution that doesn't share the family's religious belief system work?

According Bennett Lo, it does. Lo, who graduated from Bishop Blanchet High School (8200 Wallingford Ave. N), earlier this year, was raised in a Buddhist family. He started attending a Catholic elementary school, Our Lady of the Lake School at 3520 NE 89th in Wedgwood, in kindergarten because his cousins went there and he could car pool to class. He later enrolled in Bishop Blanchet, which is also a Catholic school, to stay close to his friends.

When asked if being a Buddhist in a Catholic school was difficult, Lo acknowledged that occasionally it was.

"When we discussed only Christians going to heaven - that was really weird for me," Lo said. "It did scare me a lot because (I thought) 'What about me? What about Dad?'"

However, Lo said, over time Catholicism "clicked" for him. So much so that last year Lo converted to Catholicism during an assembly in front of Bishop Blanchet's entire student body. "At first I was kind of nervous ... but then once I got up there I felt comfortable," Lo said. "It was kind of a bonding experience."

Lo, who is attending Penn State University this year, said that he does believe he got a better education from Catholic school.

"I think Catholic schools do a better job at teaching, " Lo said. "Being at a Catholic school made me feel safer."

Noe Kaneko, a senior at Bishop Blanchet this year, said the school's smaller size lead her to enroll. Kaneko and her family attend a Protestant church, United Church of Christ. She said, when she first started going to Bishop Blanchet, the school's Catholic traditions were confusing to her.

"The first mass I attended - no one told me what to do. I didn't know what mass was," Kaneko said. She added that she accidentally received communion, later feeling guilty because she wasn't Catholic and didn't understand the significance of it."

However, Kaneko said after three years she feels a strong sense of community at Bishop Blanchet and has both Catholic and non-Catholic friends.

Duncan Lewis, a Wallingford resident, sends his two children to St. Benedict School. While Lewis's wife Rebecca is Catholic, and he attended a Methodist church as a child, he doesn't consider himself to be part of any denomination. Lewis said the only problem he had as a parent was the assumptions some people make about Catholic education.

"I have friends who might believe I'm putting my kids in a narrow-minded Christian school," Lewis said. "Others unfamiliar with it will form judgments about it."

Of course, not all religious schools attract kids from different religious backgrounds. Esther Walla is principal of the North Seattle Christian School, an interdenominational, Protestant institution located at 12345 8th Ave. NE in the Haller Lake neighborhood. She said that while North Seattle Christian does serve a handful of non-Christian families, the school has concerns about kids learning one thing at school and another thing from their parents.

"We don't want kids to get caught in the middle," Walla said. "That's really why we feel we're an extension of a Christian home."

Kaneko, at least, doesn't feel caught between two faiths.

"At prayer, it doesn't mean you have to be Catholic. You can just pray anyway you want to," Kaneko said. "I feel like I have faith now. I don't think it would be part of my life if I didn't go to Blanchet." b