Catholic Education - A gift to celebrate!

We have now concluded Catholic Schools Week in our school. As is tradition, the week was filled with fun dress days, special activities, open houses, days for guests and a general buzz of fun and excitement. Anyone who works in Catholic schools knows what I am talking about. As school communities we diligently plan a full week of fun and activities to showcase and celebrate all aspects of our schools.

This was my first Catholic Schools Week (CSW) at St. Joseph. I will share that I was impressed with the hard work and dedication of our faculty and parents to make the week a success! I have never witnessed or experienced such a well run week! I am extremely grateful to everyone for their part. St. Joseph filled the week to the brim: a charity drive of some sort every day, fun dress each day, held two basketball tournaments, hosted two open houses, variety show, Arts and Academics Festival, science fair, drive through appreciation for parents, rosary for vocations, teacher appreciation breakfast and generation day. The week was a true celebration of the GIFT we are able to give our children each day - a Catholic education.

At our January Home and School meeting I presented a power point that was entitled "Tooting Our Own Horn". I had presented to the same group some goals last March and used this opportunity to update them on those goals and brag about some of the outstanding things going on at St. Joseph. Some of the successes were traditional items such as Kindergarten's famed Artic animal reports. Others were the standardized test scores of our students and the revamping of our Spanish curriculum. The presentation also began to hint at new programs that may be coming this next year.

As we are entering into registration for the upcoming year and planning our Boogie Blast (spring fundraiser) I am trying to find ways for us to continue celebrating our successes as a school. As Catholic schools we do a great job in bragging about ourselves during CSW, but we also need to be diligent in doing so all year long! Our parents are our biggest promoters and are able to help us spread the "good news" of what is happening in our schools. Let's be sure to give them the tools to do so. Getting out the facts of new programs, toting the success of classroom strategies in action and talking about our great teachers and students is my goal for the coming months. St. Joseph is THE place to be and I want all of our community to WANT to be a part of it!

If you are a parent, I encourage you to find three great things about our school that you can share with a friend or neighbor. If you are a fellow administrator, I encourage you to find a way to "toot your own horn" in the coming months. Together we can all create positive buzzes around our communities about our successes and maybe those around as will begin to wonder what they are missing!

A Lifelong Learner

The role of President in a Catholic K-8 school is fairly new and not widespread. I definitely enjoy focusing my time on 'big picture' tasks such as strategic planning, visioning, recruitment/retention, marketing and spreading the GOOD NEWS about what we do! As with any new job there is a lot to learn. I have been at my school for over six months now and continue to learn something new every day - about a student, a teacher's style, the school community, or a cutting edge strategy to meet our goals.

As an administrator in education it is important that I lead by example. Therefore I have been attending workshops and webinars focusing on furthering one's mission. Each learning opportunity seems to repeat the same message: social media makes a difference. Leaders in education are now reaching out to their school communities, potential parents and other interested parties through social media tools such as websites, Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Research and data supports the success of these tools in reaching constituents in a timely manner that reflects their lifestyle.

In response to what I was hearing, I added learning about and implementing these tools to my never ending 'to do' list. One by one I have put these tools into action and brought my school into a new realm of possibilities. I am diligently trying to reach out to anyone who may be interested in the great work we have been doing for 150 years. Today marks the end of the first chapter with the start of this blog. In the past two months our website has been renewed, a Twitter account has been created and a Facebook page has been created.

The next chapter is to keep these various tools updated. That will be part of my Monday tasks each week. I hope that I will see the engagement of the constituents of my school in new ways and am excited about the energy that this will bring to my role as President.