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!

The Wisdom of Francis

Frequent readers of my blogs know that I often talk about new ways to discuss our schools, advocating that we aim to recapture the evangelistic fervor that resonates from the gospels and our Catholic tradition. (Previous posts on this theme have been here and here. ) I believe how we articulate our purpose to others matters profoundly in building the right culture for our schools,  as long as we are willing to carve out time to speak thoughtfully, frequently and consistently about this purpose as leaders in the school, recognizing we have a kind of "bully-pulpit" to do so.

In my view, Pope Francis is particularly adept at speaking to young people about the challenge of the gospel, and thus serves as a great source of inspiration for us as Catholic school leaders on how we might talk about our mission to others. We used his brief remarks on "magnanimity" as the foundation of our "vision" for St. Michael Catholic High School, resulting in a tag line that says "Forming Great Hearts and Minds to Do Great Things."

Here are some other Francis quotes that I believe provide us with beautiful ways to think and talk about our schools:

First, here are two quotes from the "Joy of the Gospel" to inspire us as leaders:

Finally an evangelizing community is filled with joy; it knows how to rejoice always. It celebrates every small victory, every step forward in the work of evangelization (sec. 24).

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! (sec. 109).

And here's some of his messaging to young people:

Yours is a time of life which is full of amazing changes.  Everything seems possible and impossible all at once.  I repeat what I said to some of your friends: “Remain steadfast in the journey of faith, with firm hope in the Lord.  This is the secret of our journey!  He gives us the courage to swim against the tide.  Pay attention, my young friends: to go against the current; this is good for the heart, but we need courage to swim against the tide.  Jesus gives us this courage! … With him we can do great things; he will give us the joy of being his disciples, his witnesses.  Commit yourselves to great ideals, to the most important things.  We Christians were not chosen by the Lord for little things; push onwards toward the highest principles.  Stake your lives on noble ideals” (Homily at the Conferral of the Sacrament of Confirmation, 2013).

“With [Jesus] we can do great things; he will give us the joy of being his disciples, his witnesses. Commit yourselves to great ideals, to the most important things.” (Vatican Radio address to young people) 

I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, to swim against the tide; yes, I am asking you to rebel against this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately believes that you are incapable of responsibility, that you are incapable of true love. 

Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent. (Rio, World Youth Day, 2013) 

"Let yourselves be touched by his boundless mercy, so that in turn you may become apostles of mercy by your actions, words and prayers in our world, wounded by selfishness, hatred and so much despair." (in anticipation of World Youth Day, 2016)

May we bold enough to discuss our purpose with the same evangelistic zeal as our pope! 

How to Give Your Teachers Bigger Raises and Save the School Money

Last spring I was named the founding principal of St. Michael Catholic High School, a new Catholic high school located in Fairhope, Al, part of the Archdiocese of Mobile. I began work in July of 2015, and our first day of classes will be in August, 2016.  

It’s been thrilling to design a school from “scratch,” and I’ve been blessed with excellent support from the archdiocese and the broader community. But it’s also been an occasion for me to be reflective about things we principals often take as “givens,”  be they bell schedules, the classes we require, the extracurriculars we offer, and as will be the topic of this article, HOW we structure our pay scales and salaries. 

Let me begin with this general observation about us concerning salaries: We principals often draw the lines too firmly, unwilling to offer an outstanding faculty prospect a few extra thousand dollars to secure his or her place on our faculty, or to retain an excellent teacher who needs more. Our most important expenses are salaries, and our most important assets are excellent teachers. We can try and hire “on the cheap,” but the reality is, for every mediocre teacher on our faculty, we end up losing tens of thousands of dollars in tuition dollars in the long run, as unhappy or uninspired students leave us, or as a mediocre reputation dampens enthusiasm for admissions. Making PURELY an economic argument (and setting aside, for the moment, the profound difference a gifted teacher can make in young peoples’ lives), we are too often “a penny wise and a pound foolish” in our hiring and retention practices.

But often, this “mistake” is hardwired into our salary charts. I have challenged the very idea of salary charts elsewhere, because they too often hamstring us from hiring people at the salaries we need to get them. But if we must have salary charts, we should create them such that they help us retain our best teachers  (or attract high end teachers), and this means, I believe, having salary scales with the greatest range possible between starting salaries and the veterans: austere on the front end, but generous on the back. Our 15+ year veterans are presumably the pillars of our school (if they’re not, we don’t have a salary issue as much as a performance evaluation issue). I believe they should be making 25,000+ dollars more than our first year teachers. If they are, every year (or every couple of years, depending on how we choose to do it), we can give these teachers a sizable bump in salaries, recognizing their growing importance to our school. Too often, however, we keep the ranges so narrow that our annual raises barely keep pace with inflation, and almost certainly do NOT keep pace with the increasing expenses of a young person, who may begin with us as a single person, but then marry and have children. He or she may be deeply committed to our mission, but there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. 

There’s another reason a wider range salary scale is better: It’s usually cheaper. If my starting salary is relatively high but my 20+ salaries are relatively low, I’ve tilted the “average” salary up, since the statistics say the majority of our faculty will be with us less than 10-12 years. But if I am paying excellent wages to my most long-standing teachers, who represent a smaller fraction of my faculty, and if I am keeping starting salaries as low as possible, then my “average” salary will be less. 

For illustrative purposes, let’s look at two fictional schools, A and B, each with 20 faculty. Both schools have 7 (35%)  of their faculty as “level 1” (1-5) years, 7 (35%) as “level 2” (6-10) years, 4 (20%) as “level 3” (11-15 years) and  2 (10%) “level 4” (16+ years). Though every faculty is different, this would not be an entirely unusual Catholic school breakdown per 20 faculty.

School A, however, has a narrow range of salaries, with a starting salary of 38,000 and 53,000 for 15+ teachers.  School B has a wider range, with a starting salary of 33,000 and a high end of 58,000. For the sake of this illustration, let us assume that salaries increase each year in both schools in a linear fashion, meaning they go up equal amounts from level 1, to 2, etc. So in school A, the increments would be $5,000 as one moved up the levels, whereas for school B, the increments would be $8,333. 

What is the total cost of salaries? In school A (7 * 38,000) + (7 * 43000) + (4* 48000) +  (2* 53000) = a total salary of  865,000. In school B, (7* 33000) + (7*41333) + 4 * (49666) + (2* 58000) = a total salary of 838,995. School B pays out $26,000 less in salaries, even while it gives each of its teachers a bigger salary increase each year. It’s a “win—win” for both the school and employee—a happy instance where philosophy and practicality marry for the common good of all. 

And now, a few qualifications: 

These numbers don’t work, of course, if a school is comprised of predominantly long term teachers. But that’s a relatively rare phenomena—consider yourself blessed if you have that “problem”! But I’ll add this: ask yourself if those longer term faculty are among your best teachers, or to put it differently, if your performance evaluation of faculty each year is sufficiently challenging as to weed out the average teachers as the years go by. Better teaching ought to be expectation for our longer serving faculty, given that they have been able to hone their craft over the years, but often, we give our longer serving teachers a pass. 

These numbers also don’t hold if a school is unable to attract good teachers at the lower starting salary. In my example, if school B can’t find good beginning teachers at 33,000, then it’ll have to pay more. But there’s good news on that front: Having just accepted over 175 applications for 15 teaching slots as we begin a new school at St. Michael, I can tell you it’s a “buyer’s market.” Plus, as I have written elsewhere, if it’s necessary to sweeten the pot to get a hard to find position, consider giving a young person a signing bonus rather than raise beginning salaries across the board. Signing bonuses are one time payments. 

“Be wise as serpents, and gentle as doves,” Jesus commanded. May we be given wisdom to lead our schools well. 

K12 Catholic School Alliances, from the High School Perspective

I believe a day will come when many of our parish-based elementary schools will combine with our diocesan high schools into "K-12 schools", led by a single president, with a single business office and Board, and with principals at each
"campus." We did this in Montgomery, Al, in 2001, combining St. Bede elementary, Queen of Mercy elementary and Catholic High into "one school on three campuses " and renaming this new entity "Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School." We then built a middle school on the high school campus, and reconfigured the K-8 elementary schools into K-6's. The model has been highly successful, reversing a decade-long slow bleed in enrollment, creating PR, development, and financial efficiencies impossible for any one school "going it alone." From 2004-2008, enrollments grew by 35%. 

In the mean time, however, the most common model remains K-8 parochial schools funneling into a (typically) diocesan high school. I believe that even within this structure, there are "alliances" which can be created between schools that are of mutual benefit to each school within the alliance. Drawing lines of distinction between the schools too sharply or thinking too narrowly misses opportunities for mutual collaboration and benefit. Most of what this alliance entails depends on what the high school is willing to do. Here's some of what I've done and am thinking about doing in this regard (Some of this has gone on for years between high schools and elementary schools around the country.)

1) First, let us be very generous in sharing facilities with the K-8 schools and their families. This begins to create the important sense of "we" in the K12 community. In Nashville, the two Catholic high schools hosted all CYO soccer, football and basketball contests for the elementary school kids. That meant that once a week or so, parents on those teams visited our high school with their children. Is that taxing on the high school? You bet!--so much so that I reconfigured our assistant athletic director's hours to work Saturdays and be off Sundays and Mondays, so that he could be the liaison between the school and CYO. But development experts will tell you that the chance of families enrolling in your school down the line increase dramatically if they visit your school three times or more, so I saw it as a healthy long term investment in admissions. And in the interim, I'd argue we're doing the right thing by sharing our resources with the broader Catholic community--our schools don't belong to "us," after all, but to the Church.

2) Encourage a sense of "we" in the faculties of the younger grades. I tell elementary school teachers and staff to consider themselves as "adjunct faculty" of the high school, and to emphasize this point, I send them event passes for all home athletic contests and musical concerts,  and encourage them to come see their former students perform. More substantively, I tell them that I want their sons and daughters in our school, and emphasize if they need help to meet tuition costs, I will absolutely prioritize them in giving out limited financial aid monies. If we want to be a true "presence" to the younger grades, the best way is to make sure the teachers in those grades are parents in the high school!

3) I believe that we in high schools should also prioritize financial aid to assist families with children who are in both the high school and elementary schools at the same time. I think it wise to "package" this priority in some sort of marketable way, by telling parents, for example, that "If they have children in both the Catholic high school and elementary school simultaneously, we'll give the family half tuition scholarships if they qualify." That doesn't create an additional burden on the high school, because those families must qualify through an independent financial analysis, whether they have kids in other schools or not. And if they do, these are truly the families we want to help first! By setting things up this way, we acknowledge the sacrifice families are making to send their kids to our schools, and simultaneously, we assure the elementary school leadership that we're thinking of them and seeking to add value to their school. 

4) High school athletic programs are a powerful uniting force for the Catholic community, bridging over parochial divides. If possible, consider combining the middle school programs of each elementary school into "middle school" athletic programs of the high school, playing the same area K-12 private schools that the high schools play, only at a younger age . We did this in Montgomery to great effect--the "Knights" middle school program began in 2001 and actually paved the way for building a new middle school and reconfiguring the elementaries into K-6's in 2004. And here in Mobile, with an active CYO program, we're not advocating pulling the elementary schools out of CYO, which would hurt the Catholic league, but combining the Baldwin County Catholic elementary schools, some of which are too tiny to support their own teams, into a single CYO team whose name will be the "Cardinals" (our high school mascot) and which will play at the high school site. Doing so improves access for athletics to students in these smaller schools even while creating a unified "identity" that can only help the high school in its future admissions. Everyone wins!  

5) I haven't yet fully implemented this, but it's on my agenda to explore: I believe there are monies to be saved if the high school works in concert with elementary schools to negotiate bulk purchasing for things like paper,  internet access, or copy machine contracts. The more business we can bring vendors, the more powerful our alliance, and the more willing vendors will be to negotiate with us. Often the high school has a finance director that can negotiate with vendors in a way that secretaries of elementary schools simply don't have time or the expertise for, benefiting everyone.  

Aristotle once said: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." In a similar vein, Steven Covey urges us to "Think win-win" in his "Seven Habits of Successful People. I think we're wise to think this way about our K12 schools. 

Pastors and Principals--Three Practical Suggestions

Parish schools have two undisputed leaders: the principal (and in rare cases, a president) and the pastor. Canon law is clear that the pastor has ultimate charge of all ministries in his parish, including the parish school. Even so, the “face” of the pastoral ministry of the parish for young families is often the principal. When the two work together as partners, both school and parish can have a transformational effect on the life of families. When there is friction or misunderstanding between them, things fall apart. Here, then, are some practical ways in which pastors and principals can build partnerships to advance the important ministry they both share.

Establish a sacrosanct weekly meeting. In almost every case I’ve known where pastors and principals are at odds, they are not meeting regularly. This is a simple fix! There are too many overlapping areas not to talk on a routine basis, and when we don’t, we inevitably misunderstand the actions and motivations of the other. 

“Oh, we talk all the time,” one principal told me, “No need for another meeting.” I disagree, strongly, on a number of levels.  “Drive-by” meetings are almost always problem-driven, aimed at solving a particular issue of the present, and rarely involve any kind of strategic discussion about the future. Since they are quick, impromptu meetings, often the “issue” is resolved by one person informing the other what he or she has decided to do, rather than a kind of healthy give-and-take. Unwittingly then, both begin to ask themselves who has the “right” to make this or that decision, such that the context is one of authority rather than partnership. And in my observation, over time, these unscheduled meetings become less and less frequent, given the natural busyness in the life of both pastor and principal, leading inevitably to misunderstandings and resentment.

Honor symbols--Pastors and principals should look for ways to stand “side by side” both literally and figuratively in their parish ministries. For example, the principal should invite the pastor to every PTO meeting--at minimum to open the meeting with prayer, but beyond that, I’d suggest the principal ask the pastor to say a few words on the topic of the evening by way of introduction. The pastor should find a way to say “yes” to such invitations, recognizing it links him powerfully to his families. Parents love it when the pastor is present, as it affirms the “Catholic difference” they’re investing in. Short of unresolvable conflicts (but let’s be honest, most conflicts are avoidable or resolvable), I believe it’s really important for the pastor to be at big, school wide events. But the principal must invite him to have a meaningful role.

Show up for stuff--A pastor friend of mine once said, “The secret of my job is just showing up.” He went on to explain that if there were a CYO game being played in his gym on Saturday morning, he’d walk over and talk to families for 30 minutes or so, or say hello to a CCD class, or visit an RCIA class. I believe the pastor can have an enormous impact on the life of a school simply by “popping in” on schools and visiting classrooms,, shooting hoops with the older boys at recess, talking to a gaggle of middle school girls about the latest TV show. Our Catholic elementary students and teachers respond well to an active male presence in the school.

I think the same is true in reverse. We Catholic administrators often bemoan the fact our pastors are not as involved as we’d like, but we try and maintain as low profile as possible in parish life and too often miss events where our very presence would affirm the importance of the event. What pastoral initiatives and events are really important to the pastor? We ought to know, and find ways to show up for them.

A few final remarks: One of the great blessings of my life as one who has worked in Catholic education for thirty years is the fundamentally good, holy pastors and principals I’ve come to know and call “friends.” These are people who have committed their lives to God and to others; I would even call many “saintly.” It’s a sign of our brokenness that even among saintly people, misunderstandings and hard feelings develop. Instead of reading the tea leaves, trying to decipher the intentions and motivations of the other, or trying to ferret out who has the authority to make which set of decisions, we need to be very intentional about building human relationships with each other. The synergy and optimism that comes from a friendship between pastor and principal makes both ministries more powerful, leading families to heaven.

There is no higher calling.