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.