Building the Right Culture in our Schools

Nothing matters more than a school's culture in determining the quality of that school. All of its professional development efforts, helping its teachers learn new techniques to differentiate instruction, or addressing different learning styles, or helping students with disabilities, pale in comparison. As one pundit put it, "School culture eats strategies for breakfast."

So when I was asked to begin a new Catholic high school in Fairhope, Al, I was keenly aware that my most important task was to become a kind of "architect" for the culture. But what are the key parts to that? Often, it's easier to "see" or "feel"  a good school culture (or a bad one!) than articulate the component parts.

Early in my career, I came across an excellent article in Educational Leadership entitled "Good Seeds Grow in Strong Cultures" (Jon Saphier and Matthew King, 1985) which has shaped my thinking ever since. In the article, they list out 12 features of a strong school culture. I am convinced their insights are just as poignant, 32 years later:

1) Collegiality--Teachers help each other out. They care for the school as a whole. They assist younger colleagues, help plan in-services, and support each other. 

2) High expectations--Teachers and principals are accountable for high standards. While this adds stress to everyone, including students and parents, everyone is proud to be part of a dynamic organization that takes kids as far as they can go.

3) Experimentation--Teachers and principals are willing to try new things, even if they fail. If they fail, they discard them and try something else.

4) Trust and confidence-Teachers feel supported by the administration to use their best professional judgment so as to get results in the classroom. Saphier and King describe this as a "loose-tight" approach, remarking that "While leaders need to be direct about what they expect, excellent leaders give people plenty of latitude in choosing how to achieve it."

5) Tangible support--Teachers get the resources they need and the time to collaborate with colleagues.

6) Reaching out to the knowledge base--In an "aggressively curious manner," the school constantly discusses the latest research on pedagogy and ways to improve.

7) Appreciation and Recognition--Administrators are aware of what's happening in classrooms, visiting them often, aware of teachers doing a really good job, and affirming them publicly and privately often.

8) Caring, Celebration and Humor--Staff members gather together for celebrations, eat with each other in the faculty room, laugh with each other.

9) Involvement in Decision-Making--Teachers have a meaningful role in the formulation of school policies but are not pestered for every single detail.

10) Protection of What's Important--Class time is regarded as sacred, with minimal disruptions. Absenteeism is addressed. Faculty meetings respect teachers' time and are run efficiently. 

11) Traditions--There are things the school celebrates and enjoys. The school sees itself as "caretaker" to these traditions, tending to them, keeping them focused on the school's mission.

12) Open and honest communication--"Around here," one might say, "we can disagree and discuss, resolving in a constructive way. We care about this place, and care about what we're building here. "

If we can build a school culture with these 12 traits, what an exciting place to work! What an even more exciting place to learn! Build well. 

Evocative Tag Lines for Catholic Schools

Businesses use “tag lines” as a way of reinforcing their “brand” in the marketplace, and I believe we in Catholic schools can do like-wise as a way of elevating and advancing our mission with others. Soaring, aspirational goals are what we should aim for, as they inspire people and help build the culture of the school.

I enjoy the intellectual challenge of coming up with short but evocative phrases, so I’ll list five here:

• “Great hearts and minds to do great things.” This is the tag line we used to start St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Al. It was inspired by Pope Francis, who encouraged youth to be “magnanimous,” meaning literally “great-minded.” It has been a consistent theme of Francis in his discussions with young people, challenging them to aspire to greatness, encouraging them to be “cultural revolutionaries.” I believe that’s exactly the right message to youth being raised in a culture of accommodation and drearily low expectations!

• “Renewing Minds. Transforming Hearts.” This pulls from the powerful verse from Romans 12:2, which says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”. The theme of renewal and transformation is at the heart of the Christian gospel, and central to our aims in Catholic education. 

• “Faith Leads Us Beyond Ourselves”—This was the tag line we developed at Pope John Paul II when I was headmaster there. It was the result of a fairly high level review by a branding expert who did work for Coca-Cola and other multi-national organizations. He observed that most private schools we competed against sent arrows (metaphorically) toward themselves:  “Be part of the family. Become part of the tradition. Enter into an exclusive club that will set you well in life.” He said our school’s focus was outward, toward service, “commissioning” students to change the world, and that we should celebrate that difference, careful to aim the “arrows” outward. The quote comes from Pope John Paul himself, speaking to America from the outfield of Camden Yards baseball field in Baltimore in the 1990’s, making it even  more “authentic,” as it came from our namesake. It gave us a great deal of clarity in our marketing and story telling. I’ve written previously about how cleverly Notre Dame builds on this outward theme here. 

• “Forming scholars, leaders and disciples of Jesus Christ. “ This is directly from our mission statement for St. Michael. I believe too many mission statements are amorphous nothings, typically too long to remember, inspiring very little.  In the 1970’s, many of us wrote mission statements reflecting the “whole child” emphasis, meaning we included some formulation of “body, mind, spirit, soul.” I don’t deny this is our emphasis, only that it’s a boring way to phrase it! We need a “reset.” Let us speak to parents about our deepest our desire for kids: that they become disciples! That they become saints! These aspirational goals cut across religious denominations and into the very heart of the gospel.

• “Faith in Our Students. Joyful Sanctuaries for the Lord.”  We frequently sing “Sanctuary” in our school masses, and I confess to being moved each time as I listen to teenagers sing these words: “Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy. Tried and True. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living, Sanctuary for you.” I can think of no more powerful way to articulate our mission—for our students to become living sanctuaries of Jesus Christ! This theme of “sanctuary” is also reminiscent of the metaphor of the “living house” from C.S. Lewis’ wonderful book, Mere Christianity, which I discuss here. God intends to build palaces in the life of our students!

Proclaiming the Good News of Catholic Schools!

Challenges exist to be overcome! Let us be realists, but without losing our joy, our boldness and our hope-filled commitment. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary vigor! (Pope Francis, "Joy of the Gospel," sec. 109).

Pope Francis reminds us that we need to give ourselves a pep talk every now and then. So here's mine:

The life of faith is a thrill, an adventure, a path to happiness, a full life!  Isn’t that what we want most for our children?  Our families need to be reminded of the joyful life our schools can provide their children when they’re called to worship, pray and serve others within the context of learning and growing up. 

In a culture of dreary accommodation and low expectations, our parents need to hear anew the evangelical vision of our last three popes for our youth, challenging youth to aim for greatness in their lives, calling them to holiness, proposing that they become “cultural revolutionaries”  (Francis)--courageous enough to live out the gospel, to strive for virtue, and to not be “conformed to this age, but transformed by the renewal of their minds", so that they "may seek what is good, holy and perfect--the will of God.” (Romans 12:2).

Kids want to be held to a high standard! As I type this in the middle of  June, I am looking through the window of my school office at teenagers doing summer conditioning for fall sports. It's hot and muggy outside, they're red faced and sweaty, and they're..... smiling. They are happy to be pushed, happy to be preparing for the season. There's a fundamental insight here: kids want their lives to matter, and if our schools challenge them to put some  "skin in the game" in the practice of their faith, they'll respond with enthusiasm. 

Catholic schools are the future of our Church! According to 2012 data from the Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) of Georgetown University, “millenial” adults who once attended Catholic elementary schools are almost seven times more likely to attend weekly mass (34%) and those who attended Catholic high schools almost eight times more likely (39%) to attend weekly mass than those who attended neither (5%).  

Our parents need to be reminded of the transforming power of Catholic schools in the life of our kids through using consistent, evocative story telling and messaging.  We have good news to share! 

Family Friendly?

I had a recent discussion with a couple in their late twenties, both of whom work for the Church—one in a Catholic elementary school, and the other at a parish. They have two young children. They’re smart, talented and well-educated, with a real desire to serve the Lord, and they’re both vitally important to the institutions they serve. 

And our Church may lose both of them. They can’t make ends meet. 

This is, of course, a very familiar story. Though we are still blessed with talented people,  the talent we’ve lost along the way, or the talent we never were able to begin with, is staggering.  Mothers and fathers cannot afford to work for us, unless their spouse brings in the “real” money. 

Yes, I am aware that in some cases, there’s nothing we can do—neighborhoods have changed, enrollments have decreased, the revenues aren’t there to pay employees well. We’d like to pay more, but we just can’t, and so we do the best we can. 

But in many cases—too many in my judgment—the loss of talent is a self-inflicted wound, a result of simply not thinking more clearly about our priorities and an unwillingness to challenge long held assumptions. As a result, we’re not nearly as “family-friendly” to our employees as we think we are. 

 Let me flesh out some of these assumptions, and comment on them:

1) Our tuitions are already too high. If we begin to raise them aggressively higher to pay teachers more, we’ll lose our most vulnerable families. 

Too high relative to what? To our competition? Hardly! Private elementary schools charge on average 5 times what we charge in Catholic schools, and twice as much in Catholic high schools (I discuss this in greater detail here.). I am not advocating we price ourselves like private schools, but the comparison does suggest there’s more room to raise prices than we are prone to believe. 

I believe the “too high” is instead a function of what we’re used to, and part of what we’re “used to” is the legacy of the sisters, who worked (heroically!) for virtually nothing. We owe them a great debt, to be sure, but for the most part, they no longer staff our schools. Instead, we have parents, and as with this couple in their 20’s, their expenses will be increasing far faster than inflation, as their children move from being babies, to middle-schoolers, to teenagers and beyond. 

When we keep our tuitions too low, we subsidize families who can afford to pay much more, thereby making us incapable of paying our best employees more. We must be more willing to do what colleges do, setting tuitions aggressively, but then giving out financial aid liberally. Giving substantive aid is much more helpful to our most vulnerable families than keeping tuition increases at 3% instead of 5% anyway! 

2) All salary increases must be evenly distributed across all employees.

Why? I believe we carry within us, often unreflectively, that “fairness” demands we treat everyone the same. But I challenge that notion. Is it fair to our hardest working employees to treat them the same as those who work least hard? To treat those most vital to our institutions the same as the least vital? Many communities of professional employees base their raises on some sort of merit system, but for some reason, we cling to salary charts based on years and degrees, virtually guaranteeing we cannot give substantive raises to our best talent. We should give clear stretch goals for our employees and then reward those who achieve these goals handsomely. 

4) If we give particular benefits to families, it’s unfair to employees without families. 

I don’t buy that, but even if I did, that ship has sailed. It’s literally impossible to treat everyone the same. Only certain employees on the health insurance plan can become pregnant, but their claims increase premium costs for all. Healthy employees subsidize sicker ones.  Tuition remission for children is a benefit only for parents. 

So let’s go all in! Why do we insist on 50% remission for tuition? Why not 100%? Unless the spouse of our employee has a very lucrative job, it’s likely that even if we give 50% off, our employees will need additional financial aid! So why wouldn’t we want to “give away” what we’re unlikely to get anyway? And what about providing day care? I know of a Catholic parish that has day care for the general public, but it also offers this service to employees at their school for a fraction of the cost—a beautiful way of cementing that family’s loyalty and a huge draw for prospective new hires! Let’s look at our maternity and paternity policies as well—for the most part, we’re too chintzy. 

5) We shouldn’t have husband and wives on our faculties. 

A number of my colleagues believe that, but I’ve never understood it. I hired a wonderful husband and wife in our first year, and hired the spouse of a current employee for our second year. As long as they’re not in a line-staff relationship, I think having husband-wife teams create synchronicity of schedules, vacations, and a sense of mission that becomes a multiplier in their effectiveness, not a negative. 

Part of what makes for a great teacher is his or her willingness to be at ball games, attend concerts, support PTO efforts. If every time he or she is involved with us in these ventures is an “either-or” between the school and family, it creates tensions that diminish the teacher’s willingness to do these things and creates strains within the marriage.  But if both husband and wife are working for the same school, they can tag-team these responsibilities and feel like they’re both advancing the school’s mission together. It makes it easier for both to understand that the school as the context within which they can raise their children, bringing them to ball games and “hanging out” with their friends.

So let’s be creative. Let’s not be too stubborn about “policies” that are strictly enforced when Mom needs a couple of hours off to go to a child’s award ceremony or see her son play in an athletic event. Better to ask Mom to give those hours back in some way at a future time, and trust her to do so. Let’s make sure we are liberal in allowing Dad to visit his aging father out of state, but ask him to give it back in increments acting as the school admin for upcoming home athletic events. Let’s be a family friendly office if Mom needs to bring her infant to school for a few hours before Dad can get off work, or if we need to set up an employee’s 8 year old child in an office doing homework at 3:30 p.m. before the school receptionist gets off work at 5. 

Let’s be a place where families, spouses, children are welcomed! Happy families yield happy, balanced and hard working employees.

Catholic High Schools: 20 Guiding Principles and Practices

We finished our first year as a school at St. Michael Catholic High School on Friday. The whole experience-- being hired a year in advance to design the curriculum, sell the school to prospective families, hire the first faculty, choose the mascot, create the weekly bell schedules,  and write the policy handbook--to the dedication ceremony, meeting students on the first day of school, establishing our house system, creating new traditions--has been one of the great privileges of my career.

One of the many renewing parts of this process for me has been the chance to be reflective of good practices, and specifically, good Catholic high school practices, before establishing them at our new school. I am indebted to two extraordinary Catholic high schools, Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School in Montgomery, Al and Pope John Paul II Catholic High School in Nashville, TN, for helping shape my views on these things, and being the “laboratory” for trying out these ideas and revising them over the course of my 32 year career, twenty-eight as principal. And I should thank the students of St. Michael, too, for being “down for anything” that we tried this year--they’ve simply been a lot of fun!

So here, in no particular order, are 20 principles or practices I believe are the mark of a good Catholic high school. Some are specific to being Catholic, whereas others reflect my beliefs about high schools more generally. Not everyone will agree with me, and I respect that. Our schools are worth arguing about!

1. The school must articulate a bold, optimistic vision of what students are capable of achieving through the transforming power of God’s grace in their lives. Here’s a talk I gave on “audacious optimism” at a back to school PTO night that spells out this idea more fully.
2. The school must have frequent opportunities for prayer and worship, with weekly school Mass as the “anchor” of communal life. The school should try and expose students to the full range of our Tradition, from past to present, so that students develop a fuller vision of Church practice.  Here’s what I mean.
3. The school should embrace its connection to the wider Church--its bishop, the central Catholic school office staff, the parish priests, the pope.  We are a ministry of the Church, and should celebrate that frequently. Sometimes, schools unwittingly communicate it’s a burden or annoyance! Whatever “burden” it is to be part of a whole and responsible to those vested in leadership of the whole, it’s really a “beautiful burden” (I once heard it described), giving us great stability and depth, allowing us as school leaders to speak from within an established tradition and teleos. We are not on an island!
4. The school’s schedule must allow students to develop as scholars, artists, and athletes, without forcing them to choose one over the other. The time for specialization is later. Our job is to open many doors and have students explore multiple rooms. With a “Renaissance” emphasis, students flourish, achieving balance in their lives.
5. Faculty have to be dynamically Christian, quick-witted, well educated in their field of study, must love working with teenagers, and have a hard to define “with-it-ness.” That’s what I am always looking for in a teacher prospect--if one of these features is missing, I look elsewhere.
6. Once hired, faculty must be given freedom, with accountability. I do not believe in requiring lesson plans. I do believe in requiring syllabi. I don’t believe in formal classroom visits, with an evaluation instrument in hand. I do believe in frequent “drive by” visits of 2, 3 or 5 minutes. Faculty are professionals, and must be treated as such, but must exhibit professional behavior, which includes evidence of desire to improve one’s craft. 
7. Relationships must govern the life of the school, not rules. Yes, there are rules, and if the authority of a teacher is challenged, the teacher must invoke his or her authority. But our relationships should be human ones first! Students do stumble, but they want to do the right thing most of the time, and will generally respond well a culture that “gives them space” to grow up.
8. Relationships between teachers and parents matter, too! I encourage them as much as possible. Formally, we have a “back to school” night where parents meet their children’s teachers, a “end of first quarter parent conference,” in which I encourage parents to discuss their child’s progress with each teacher, and an optional “end of third quarter parent conference” where teachers are available in their classrooms for parents to visit during a 2 hour block. We encourage families to email parents if they have concerns, and I insist faculty return those inquiries within 24 hours. If there are disagreements, I ask they be resolved face to face, not through email.
9. Schools must resist the temptation to spell out every conceivable disciplinary violation and penalty; ultimately, those in charge need the liberty to handle students as individuals, doing what’s best for them in the unique circumstances of the situation.
10. Quirky is good. Different is good. Students like a school that doesn’t follow everyone else’s script. They like acting that way, too, from time to time! We should resist what I call “template-thinking” or “plug and play” in our schools.  Each of our schools is unique!
11. Schools should be careful creators and caretakers of rituals--they determine a school’s culture. I speak to the whole school every Monday after 3rd period. We have Mass every Wednesday. The student body runs the Friday assemblies. Students and teachers were assigned into a “House” at the beginning of the year, named after the early bishops of Mobile. Just before being dismissed for the summer, students had to shake the hand of every teacher, staff and custodian in a ‘receiving line’ in the gym first--that turned out to be quite moving to teachers and students alike.
12. Schools should be “stingy” with A’s, reserving them for truly superior work. Schools should be generous with B’s, if students are working hard. If we give out A's too liberally, we're not pushing our more capable students to excel, confirming a too prevalent (and incorrect) belief we're not capable of educating the brightest kids.
13. Homework should be a consistent expectation in core classes, with the school aiming at 60-90 minutes/night for underclassmen and 90-150 minutes/night for upperclassmen. Homework should be weighted as important--we say between 25-40% of a quarter grade.
14. On a 100 point scale, no grade should ever be entered in a gradebook less than 50. I explain why here.
15. Students in a “college preparatory school” should not have the option of an academic track that is below the “standard” level. I argue for two levels for Catholic high schools-an “honors” level (to eventually include A.P.), and a “standard” level.  If the “standard” level aims at what is minimal and essential for students to learn to be ready for college, what happens in the sub-standard classes? Yes, some students will struggle in the standard track, but that’s part of their growth.
16. Faculty should be available after school to assist students needing help. Each of our teachers host “tutorials” four days a week, (sans Friday) until 4 p.m. And though we dismiss from school at 3:10, we don’t start athletic practices until 4 p.m. to encourage students to get the help they need.
17. Class time is sacred. It should be interrupted only with the principal’s consent, and then, only rarely. We must particularly “re-establish” this principle in regards to athletic scheduling and early check-outs.
18. Attendance is a student and parent’s responsibility, not the school’s. The school should insist parents own this issue. Once a student has exceeded the maximum # of excused absences, all other absences in a semester are unexcused. (I make principal exceptions for extended medical illnesses of 3 or more days, if they produced a doctor’s note). Parents get leeway in determining absences up to a certain number--in our case, 7 per semester. Everything missed after the 7th is automatically "unexcused," and work missed is given a late grade.
19. Schools should price tuitions and fees at a level they won’t need “nickle and dime” parents with fees all year long. If families need help with tuition,  schools should be generous with financial aid. If we set tuitions in light of our poorer families, we subsidize families who can afford to pay more, losing that revenue, and force ourselves to “fee” families for athletics, extra-curricular participation, etc. Those fees, coming at random times in the year, are harder for our poorer to scrounge up and pay. I explain all this here. There’s even a marketing side to this, too, which I explain here.
20. Schools should build a “culture of philanthropy” and ask all families to contribute to the school’s annual fund. Much better for schools to raise monies through charity than through fees--gifts are tax deductible!

What is the Lowest "F" grade?

At St. Michael Catholic High School, the lowest “F” grade we record in our grade book program is a 50. That’s true if a student scores less than than a 50 for a test or quiz, or if a student skips an assignment.

Let me guess what you might be thinking: This is yet another example of a misplaced sense of compassion, whereby we give students something they don’t deserve in order to build up their self-esteem, resulting in inflated grades. Or maybe you think it’s because we’re trying to help our weakest students and “give them a chance” if they bomb a major assignment.

You may think these things, but you’d be wrong. We give grades of 50 because it’s the lowest possible “F” we can give a student on a 100 point scale that is valid. We do it for reasons of cold, hard mathematics!

The mathematical problem with giving grades lower than 50 is caused by trying to translate a one hundred point scale based on percentages into a 4 point GPA scale. Though each school might define these ranges a bit differently, for the sake of example, let’s say a school defines 90-100 as an A or 4.0, 80-89 as a B or 3.0, 70-79 as a C or 2.0, 60-69 as a D or 1.0, and anything less than 60% as an F or 0.0.

What does a “zero” on a 100 point scale, then, translate to on a 4 point GPA scale? Mathematically, a 50 is a 0.0, a 40 is a -1.0, a 30 is a -.2, a 20 is a -3, a 10 is a -4 and a “0” is a negative -5 on a “point” scale. We’re giving -5’s each time we enter a zero!

Let’s look at it in a different way. If a student gets a perfect score on test #1 and a misses every single question on test #2 and both tests were equally weighted, what should his grade be? Well, logically, the average between a high A (4.0) and low F (0.0) should be a C (2.0). But if we entered "0" for test #1 and "100" for test #2, the average would be a 50--or a flat F. In fact, if a student received a score of zero for the first test, he or she would have to get three perfect test scores to equal 300/400 points, or 75%, or a middle C. But that’s simply wrong! Three A’s and an F should average to a B (3.0), due to the fact that (4+4+4+0)/4 equals 3.

In other words, when we give “percentage” scores of less than 50 and retranslate that to a 4 point GPA scale, we inadvertently “weaponize” that grade against the student.

Let me anticipate a few objections:

If we give 50’s for work that is less than 50% correct or 50's for missing assignments, we give them “something for nothing” and that’s the wrong message.

No, we give them the lowest possible F that is mathematically valid. We give them nothing, but we also do not take away what they already have! Suppose we only entered grades as letter grades, as perhaps an English teacher might do for essays.  What letter would we give a kid who missed an assignment? An F, right? A zero on a 4.0 scale. That’s our lowest grade! But if we give zeroes on a 100 point scale, we are destroying their grade disproportionately to what they've already gained.

If I give nothing lower than 50 on missed assignments, kids would  rarely do homework or turn in minor assignments. It’s not enough of a penalty to make them do it.

If getting 50's for missing homework doesn't impact a student’s grade, then the “homework” portion of a quarter grade is likely weighted too low. Homework as 10% of a final grade won’t have much impact, and kids will figure out pretty quickly that doing it doesn’t matter! But at St. Michael, homework counts anywhere from 25% to 40% of the final average. Logging a series of “50’s” has real impact.

I support a higher percentage of grade for homework from a pedagogical viewpoint as well. One of the most important lessons we must teach students is to “earn” their success through hard work.  If I allow a student sit through a class, never pick up a book to study, ace the test and get a good grade, I have contributed to this student’s moral delinquency as an adult. Homework forces a kid to “own”his or her education, without the teacher at that moment being the main engine that “drives” the car. We should hold onto its importance by weighting it sufficiently.

Giving 50’s instead of zeroes flies in the face of long standing educational practice.

It may be long-standing, but that doesn’t make it right! The problem developed over time, I think, when we morphed from a predominantly “lettered” grading system in our schools (A through F) to a predominantly “numbered” system (1-100) due to the predominance of spreadsheets and computer averaging. Computers need numbers. If we were only giving letter grades, then it would be entirely appropriate to give “zeroes" on a four point scale.

Is there any mathematically sound alternative? It just feels wrong.

If a faculty is adamant about recording the exact percentage, even if less than 50%, were I their principal, I’d insist they multiply whatever percent that was times 4, then enter that number in the gradebook, with “4” being the maximum total points. All grades must also be recorded as a number between 0-4. Zeroes would then be mathematically sound. But doing it this way would also be a nuisance!

We prefer to simply keep the lowest grade at 50.

Discussing our Mission with Others

For those of us in leadership positions in Catholic schools, I believe we must be intentional about layering over our schools with soaring, aspirational language that is explicit about who we are. If we can say things clearly and consistently, I believe this language begins to affect our communities' self-understanding, helping our faculty, students and families build a common purpose. 

Here's a few more resources to that end. The last piece is something I put together for the founding of St. Michael Catholic High School.

1) From Archbishop Michael Millar, "Five Essential Marks of Catholic Schools" (2006):

(One essential mark of a Catholic school is that it is) "inspired by a supernatural vision. The Church sees education as a process that, in light of man's transcendent destiny, forms the whole child and seeks to fix his or her eyes on heaven. The specific purpose of a Catholic education is the formation of boys and girls who will be good citizens of this world, loving God and neighbor and enriching society with the leaven of the gospel, and who will also be citizens of the world to come, thus fulfilling their destiny to become saints." 

2) From Pope Francis: "Our generation will show that it can rise to the promise found in each young person when we know how to give them space. This means that we have to create the material and spiritual conditions for their full development; to give them a solid basis on which to build their lives; to guarantee their safety and their education to be everything they can be.."  

3) From Pope John Paul II: " Catholic education aims not only to communicate facts but also to transmit a coherent, comprehensive vision of life, in the conviction that the truths contained in that vision liberate students in the most profound meaning of human freedom."

4) And from Pope John Paul II again: " The greatest challenge to Catholic education in the United States today...is to restore to that culture the conviction that human beings can grasp the truth of things, and in grasping that truth can know their duties to God, to themselves and their neighbors."

5) From the website of St. Michael Catholic High School (Fairhope, AL):  

Our motto is: "Great hearts and minds to do great things!"

Pope Francis, speaking recently to youth, encouraged them to strive for "magnanimity," which he defined as " having a great heart, having greatness of mind; and having great ideals; the wish to do great things in response to what God asks of us."

Pope Francis artfully summarizes our aspirations for students at St. Michael. We want them to develop great hearts and great minds, so that they may live joyful lives, and in so doing, do great things for others.

In his explanation of the virtue of magnanimity in the Summa, St. Thomas Aquinas reflects on its opposite, "pusillanimity," which means, literally, "small mindedness." The reason people are small minded, he says, is they don't believe they have the "qualifications" to do great things--that they are incapable, as if magnanimity were a virtue only possible for saints. And in fact, we live in a culture that too often thinks this way about teenagers, that tells them they are incapable of chastity (so we advocate for 'safe sex'), or true scholarship (so we inflate grades) or handling disappointment (so we give everyone a trophy). And the sad thing about this consistent messaging is that our children begin to believe these things about themselves.

That's not our view! We are children of God, temples of the Holy Spirit, and infused with the grace of Christ, "who strengthens us, and through whom we can do all things." (Philippians 4:13). We are called to holiness! We are called to be saints! We want students to "go for it," to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones, to delve deeper into their studies, to try out for teams (even if they're not selected), to join new clubs, to serve others in new ways, and to strive for excellence. In so doing, we believe students will grow into young men and women who are happy, confident in their futures, and ready to make a difference in this world.

We believe teens are hungry, deep down, to be challenged. They are utterly bored and uninspired by an accommodating, "lowest common denominator" approach to life. They want their lives to matter; they want to be challenged by the gospel, to believe that such a life is possible, and they are powerfully attracted to people who are living as if it is.

Infused with optimism, immersed in a culture of excellence, blessed by teachers who care about kids and lift them up when they stumble, and elevated by a dynamic faith, Catholic high schools can change students' lives!

May St. Michael truly be a place that calls students to greatness!