INDIANAPOLIS – Gloria Guillen wanted to keep her youngest child in the Catholic school he’s grown up attending as long as possible. But she knew that eventually the financial strain of private-school tuition would force her to move him into public schools, just as she’d done with his older siblings.

But a plan to convert two Catholic elementary schools into taxpayer-supported charter schools this fall means Guillen’s son Ivan, a fifth-grader at St. Anthony School in Indianapolis, will get to stay in his school without paying parochial school tuition.

Charter school authorizers and management officials say the city’s approval Monday of a plan to convert St. Anthony’s and St. Andrew & St. Rita Academy into charter schools marks the first time in the country that an archdiocese will run public charter schools.

The move will qualify the schools for nearly $1 million in state funding in the first year.

But concerns about the archdiocese’s ability to maintain a separation of church and state have already prompted a national watchdog group to write Mayor Greg Ballard’s office with its concerns.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it is concerned about the archdiocese’s willingness to end all school prayer and remove religious icons, as well as how teachers who remain with the schools will be trained so they understand the constitutional duties of public school teachers.

“We are certainly going to be watching the situation as closely as we can and making noise about it when we see things going on that should not be,” said Leona E. Balek, president of the group’s Indiana chapter.

Archdiocese spokesman Greg Otolski said the schools will end religious education classes during the school day and will remove or cover religious icons.

At St. Anthony, that means removing the crucifixes and statues of saints found in every classroom and office, along with the Bibles sitting on display tables in hallways and saint statues in stairwells.

The board will have to get creative at St. Andrew & St. Rita, where two large limestone crosses are part of the outside wall of the building, said Connie Zittnan, director of the Mother Theodore Catholic Academies, which runs the city’s six urban Catholic schools.

MTCA will continue to manage the day-to-day operations of the charter schools, which are generally free of many of the curriculum, budget and other regulations imposed on traditional public schools.

But it will do the bookkeeping offsite so that there is no confusion between the finances of the private and public schools, which require different levels of accountability to the government, Zittnan said.

The two schools will be renamed this summer by parents. Each will have spots for 24 students per grade level and will accept applications during a two-week open admission period, Zittnan said.

Current teachers will have to reapply for their jobs, but Otolski anticipates many will return after the transition.