New Wine into Old Wineskins: Renewing and Re-Presenting Our Schools

In an earlier article, I discussed how I thought it was possible for a diocesan Catholic high school to also be a "prep" school, despite tensions between the two models. In that article, I looked at the four lynchpin issues of access, cost, academic program and faith that would be the likely "trouble-spots" in the melding of those two models.

In this article, I want to focus on how a Catholic school may present itself as a prep school to its constituents in terms of the kind of programs it offers, its market presence in the community, and small steps an existing Catholic high school might take to "re-present" itself, pouring new wine into old wineskins.

1) Begin with new, elevated ways to discuss the school and its mission, steering clear of tired cliches such as "body, mind, spirit" constructions. I've written more about this here and here. I think that too many of us working in Catholic schools underestimate the power and importance of what we do in discussions with others, and we need to speak about the transformative power of our school with audacious optimism and enthusiasm.

2) Consider renaming the principal of the school as "headmaster" or "head of school" and the assistant principals as "deans." When I came to JPII after nineteen years as "principal" and "president" of a diocesan Catholic school, I almost choked on my new title as "headmaster." It sounded too snobbish or preppy. In fact, the first year of my tenure, I introduced myself as "principal" reflexively, until the president of our Board finally took me aside and told me, "You were hired as the school's headmaster, not principal, and that title is important to us. We want to create a market distinction with other diocesan high schools, and language matters." Reluctantly, I have come to realize he was right--that small changes in language, costing the school nothing in terms of advertising dollars, can slowly re-position the school in the marketplace, elevating the school's image and distinctiveness. Language does matter.

3) Look "across the pond" for ideas. JPII has a sister school relationship with St. Edmund in England--we send about 15 students from our school to live with their families for three weeks, and they send theirs to live with our families. As I have written earlier, it's a wonderful way to establish a cheap, meaningful international program. But to the point of this article, I have also been fascinated by some of the practices of the British independent schools, a few of which we've adopted:

• The creation of "Houses" as a way of building internal school communities. Yes, think Harry Potter, minus dorm living. New students and faculty and staff are "sorted" into one of six "Houses" (we name them after popes, consistent with our school name), with one "Housemaster" (a faculty member),  100 students and six or seven teachers/staff as "advisors". All social life of the school is built around the House System. We play "House games" once/semester in which school closes down at lunch and kids participate in a variety of games. We have can food drive contests between Houses, "penny-wars," and all sorts of other things, with each House earning points for the "House Cup" announced in April. The kids love it. 

• As part of the "House" system, all students are grouped into "advisories" consisting of 15-16 students each. "Advisors" (the British call them "tutors") meet with their students a minimum of once/week to check up on how they're doing. Each advisory group is comprised of roughly four students from each grade level,  and the same group stays together during their four years, +/- the outgoing seniors and incoming new students. In this way, the advisor builds a long term relationship with his or her students, and we are able to build in a layer of pastoral care for all students on an ongoing basis. 

• "Assemblies" as part of the school schedule. Twice a week, our school assembles in the school auditorium for about 20 minutes. On Mondays, I have a 3-5 minute "assembly address" and lead the assembly, whereas on Fridays, the student body president is in charge. The last five minutes of both, students and teachers come to the stage to make announcements for their club or athletic team (which, incidentally, solves the "problem" of announcements in the afternoon that no one ever listens to). These assemblies give our school a common life and identity which are important for building the culture of the school. 

Advocacy Begins With Us

History credits Theodore Roosevelt as first to recognize the “bully pulpit” potential of the presidency—the idea that the office garnered so much press and attention that he could use it effectively to build coalitions of public support for his ideas, support which he could then leverage with Congress to pass legislation against the various entrenched monopolies and trusts he so famously challenged.

I am convinced as leaders of Catholic education, we too have a kind of “bully pulpit” within our dioceses and townships—and even within our own parent community—to talk about the transformational difference our schools make in the life of our kids--and to advocate for more students, more donations and more diocesan support.

But we don’t use this pulpit enough.

Part of the problem is we don’t create enough opportunities for us to speak to our constituencies. When was I first hired as JPII’s headmaster, I learned that all the students met twice a week for “assembly” and that the headmaster gave an “address” to the students as part of that. I had been principal or president for nineteen years, but had never presumed to speak to students on a regular basis—only at special events or after ad hoc meetings after a pep rally or a school mass.  “What do you talk about?” I asked my predecessor, a bit skeptical.  “I like to tell the narrative of the school,” he said, cryptically.

Honestly, I thought that was a little nutty, but I had vowed as the new principal to accept the traditions and policies of the school as they were handed to me before beginning to put my own mark on the school in my second year. So I gave a 3-5 minute “assembly address” to students every Monday, convinced early on that I would punt that tradition in my second year and give the minutes back to classroom teachers for additional instructional time.

But six years later, I am still giving assembly addresses once a week.   I have found they provide a powerful opportunity for me to set the tone for the school—to discuss my perspectives on events in the news, or what happened at last night’s basketball game, or something the pope said recently. The four-year cumulative effect, I believe, has impact on the way our kids think about things, and gives them a vocabulary and perspective about the way they talk about themselves and about our school.  I even post my addresses, now, on my Catholic Educator blog, and send a link to parents if they’re interested in reading them. Roughly 150-200 parents read my remarks each week.

They understand all this in Britain—English headmasters have been giving assembly addresses for centuries. Perhaps it’s that the British have more faith in the power of words to shape attitudes and move people to action than we in America, who have become cynical of speeches in light of the puffery and demagoguery of politics or marketing. But I think we could learn a lot from the British here—we can’t trust that words matter unless we commit to using them thoughtfully and consistently to build up our school and our students.

But it’s not only that we don’t create enough opportunities to speak. It’s also that we don’t use the opportunities we DO have already.

I believe that we as principals should speak at every PTO meeting, and every pep rally, and every public event, if only for a few minutes, ideally to tell a story about something that happened in the life of the school and to remind everyone of our mission and the good work our school does for kids. I think also we should work hard to ramp up our language and vocabulary about our noble purpose, as I have written about earlier here. 

A week before the graduation of her younger son, a mother of two well known athletes in our community came to see me. “I am here to thank you for what this school has done for my boys,” she said, choking back tears. “They’re not only going to college on athletic scholarships, but they’re both going to schools which are excellent academic institutions where I know they’ll be graduating with a degree that means something. I am proud of the young men they’re becoming, and this school had a lot to do with that.”

Those are the kinds of stories we as principals must seek out, tell, and retell over and over in our communities, using the “bully pulpit” of our position to shape how people think about us and talk about us. 

If we don’t tell the good news about our school, we can guess with near certainty that someone will fill the vacuum with bad news.