Interviewing Catholic Teacher Candidates

Many books have been written on how to conduct good interviews, and I don’t pretend to have “inside information” that trumps the wisdom of others. But I’ve been interviewing prospective Catholic school teachers for many years, and this approach works well for me, giving the practicalities of simultaneously running a school: 

First, as I mentioned in my earlier article, I interview as few people as possible, based on a review of their resume and cover letter. The whole interview process is a huge time sucker, and as principal, I have to be judicious about my time.  It may be also wasting candidates’ time,  raising their expectations in so doing. I only interview people whom I may be truly interested in hiring. 

How do I determine who makes the “cut” to be interviewed on the basis of a resume and cover letter?  I look for three things: 

First, do they have deep knowledge in their subject area, which means (at minimum), do they have a B.A. or B.S. in the field of teaching for which I am interviewing, or even better, a Master’s degree? Which university they graduate from matters, too: a graduate from a selective admissions school likely has the “smarts.”  Those from less selective schools may also have the smarts, so I don’t eliminate a candidate on that basis, but the better the university, the more confident I am.  

Colleagues of mine disagree with me, but I don't care whether they are "certified" or not. All "certification" means is that they've taken enough undergraduate education courses to earn a "Class B" certification (what they call it in Alabama). But education courses do not guarantee teaching ability, and I think requiring certification unnecessarily shrinks the talent pool of potential candidates. It's important to note, too, that Advanced Ed/SACS, our accreditation agency,  no longer requires "certification" to teach in our schools as they once did. Instead, the agency relies on the judgment of the principal to determine if the candidate is qualified, and then insists on a program of continuous improvement once hired. 

Second, I am interested in how well they write; if candidates butcher the cover letter, I surmise they are either too lazy to check their work, or lack the intellectual gravitas to present their ideas well. The ability to write compelling prose belies an agile mind, the kind I want leading our students. I’ll give a little latitude to Math or Science prospects, since their academic strengths are elsewhere, presumably.  But I don't give much! Even if one is teaching Math, he or she must be communicating in English.  

Third, though I review this carefully with candidates during the interview, in evaluating resumes,  I pay careful attention to transition points. Do they leave a job every couple of years? Then I’m not interested—I’ve found, over and over, that candidates’ histories are the best predictors of their futures with us, and I don’t want to invest the time and energy enculturating new teachers into our school unless they’re long term prospects. Also, does the transition make sense? Are they moving to a better job, with more responsibility, or more prestige, with (likely) better pay? If not, it may well be that I don’t interview. 

How do I conduct the interview? 

I believe most people who interview folks for a living will agree that they know if they’re NOT interested in a candidate within the first few minutes of the interview. At that point, they’re looking for a graceful way out, in however short a time that good manners will allow. For that exact reason, I tell candidates the first interview is typically short, perhaps 30 minutes, describing it as a “chance for us to get to know each other.” I tell candidates that I will have a second interview for candidates whom I believe will be finalists for the job. That gives me an "out" if need be. 

There are some critical things I need to know in this first interview, some of which are difficult to ask directly. Specifically, since teachers are understood as “ministers” in a Catholic school, I need to know the depth of their Catholic faith and whether or not they are in a sacramentally valid marriage. The way I get at both of these subjects is to ask the open ended question at the beginning of every interview I conduct: “Tell me about your family and faith.”  In so doing, I get them talking—and in every interview, I want them to do more talking than me! But it’s also interesting to see what they choose to focus on, and it gives me the chance to ask follow up questions as they go, like, “How old are your children? How long have you and your husband (or wife) been married? What does he (or she) do? Were you married at a local Church? Do you still worship in that Church? Are you involved in any parish ministries?” etc as part of a dialogue between the candidate and me. If they're "faking" their faith, they cannot speak about parish life very convincingly.   I cannot emphasize this point enough: where a candidate has been is a pretty good indication of where they are going. I want to understand WHO that person is, even more than I want to understand his professional accomplishments, especially in this introductory interview. 

After we cover the personal stuff, just as I have done pre-interview, I want to understand the chronology of a person’s professional career, especially the transition points.  I ask frequently, “Why did you leave that job?” If I get vague answers like “Just wasn’t happy,” or “Wasn’t being stretched,” or things like that, I am suspicious. In general, I don’t expect a candidate to leave a job unless they’re moving to a better situation. For sure, everyone can get into a bad situation through no fault of their own, or have a bad boss, or need to leave somewhere because they’re unhappy. But a candidate should be able to talk about those difficult situations in some detail, without throwing their bosses under the bus, and without resorting to generic answers. 

“If I walked into your classroom on a random day, what would I likely see and hear?” Yes, I want to deduce the teaching methods the teacher employs, but I want to get into that question in a concrete way, not a conversation about abstractions. Good teachers are practical, emphasizing the “how.” Content is important, but curriculum is more than content; it also involves pedagogy. And if they’re experienced, I ask them what their national curricular association thinks about “good English teaching, “ or “good History teaching,” and whether or not they agree with their association. I am trying to determine if they are up on things, or set in their ways, suspicious of new ideas. A lot has changed in the way we think about curriculum. I don’t want a teacher who has not seriously engaged in these new ideas, even if they’re cautious about implementing them lock, stock and barrel. 

Finally, I ask candidates if they have questions. What they ask me tells me how well they’ve thought about the job, whether or not they’ve engaged with our web page, what their priorities are. Ideally, candidates should have good, thoughtful, meaty questions about how we do things. I think it speaks well of them. 

That’s about it. The last thing I do is make a personal note to myself on their resume, giving the candidate a 1 (not interested), 2 (not very interested), 3 (interested) or 4 (hire this person!). It’s hard for me to remember interviews I had a couple of months ago! That number serves as a brief reminder to myself. 

If I like the person—a “3” or “4”, then I’ll do a little follow-up with references. If I can avoid it, I rarely call the references candidates list on the bottom of their resume. These are chosen by candidates for a reason, with predictable responses.  But if I know someone that knows that person, or worked with him or her, or was that person’s boss, I’ll call them and talk. Sometimes people will feel constrained to share things with me, but often, it’s what they AREN’T saying—silent on things where someone should receive praise—which tells me volumes. And I’ll also do a brief internet search on that person—what’s “out there” on him or her? Most people have some sort of online identity. 

If all that checks out, then I’ll likely take the next step: inviting them back for a second interview, to meet other people and possibly, to teach an actual class of students. And at that point, I also send out all the forms they must send me back and ask them to bring them completed to the interview, so we don't have to chase them down. We can't avoid the forms! But by now, they're convinced that we're really interested in them, so filling them out doesn't seem so terrible.  I ask them to bring all the completed forms to the second interview, so we don’t have to chase them down, a piece at a time.

If I decide NOT to hire someone I've rated a 3 or 4, I keep them in an "active file" if I need another teacher in the future  Maybe it wasn't quite the right fit for this "round," but I always want to keep a conversation going with strong candidates, and don't want to lose their resumes! 

So yes, interviewing and follow-ups take a lot of time, which is why I try and do as few as possible for each opening!. But when we have a real candidate of interest, we’re foolish if we don’t do a complete and thorough review of that person. 

Getting the right people to teach at our schools is the most important thing we do as principals.  

Hiring Excellent Teachers--Important First Steps

If we want really talented people to apply for teaching positions at our school,  then the "how" matters, especially in the initial stages of the hiring process!

Here are two suggestions:

We should take time to design a really pro-active, optimistic job description, explaining our vision for the school, and the role of teachers in our school. This is worth the effort! Talented people, the kind we want for our school, have many options for jobs, and it's foolish to believe they'll automatically want to work for us. We have to sell them! We have to tap into their idealism, their desire to do something important with their lives, to use their talents to build up the kingdom of God and make a difference in the lives of kids.  

We should then post all this on a web page, and get the link out using social media sites, in parishes bulletins, and job bulletin boards. Here’s what I’ve written up at St. Michael  as an introduction to our job postings, as an example. 

We should require very little upfront. I emphasize the point of needing to “sell” prospects on the school, because too often we assume the opposite. Too often, our first outreach is “Here are the forms you must send us.” —A diocesan application, a verification of work experience form, letters of reference, child protection screening forms, transcripts, whatever. Forms! Forms! Forms! Once ALL those forms are in, we say without meaning to, we’ll CONSIDER you for a possible interview—maybe. 

I believe a lot of talented people turn away from us, even before we know they’re interested. That's exactly the opposite of what we want! If there’s a talented prospect even marginally interested in a job, we want to be in a dialogue with that person! Yes, in this litigious world of ours, we'll have to fill out forms at some point, but those should come second, after a relationship has been established! 

So all I ask a teacher prospect to do, as a first step, is send me a cover letter, explaining his or her interest, and a resume. I ask for the resume to determine credentials, and the cover letter, to see how well they write.  The ability to write well speaks of intellectual depth; it’s not something a person can “fake.” 

With a resume and a cover letter, we can take the next step, which is deciding whom we want to interview or not. In general, I try and interview as few people as possible, simply because of the constraints of time, so I really do try and "pare down the candidates" from the resume and cover letter. 

I’ll write about the interview next. 

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!