Knowing Our Lanes: Boards, Principals, Pastors and Dioceses

Boards which serve our schools sometimes misunderstand their role, believing they have an authority they may not actually have. This leads to enormous tension between boards, principals, pastors and dioceses.

My mentor, Dr. Tom Doyle, used to say, “A clear understanding of who makes which set of decisions is an absolute pre-requisite for organizations to function well.”

This is certainly the case with Boards, as there are different types of Boards, each with a different scope of authority. It’s important to understand which type our schools are in!

There are three:

A “Board of Trustees” (BOT) is typical of most independent schools. As its name implies, an “independent school” BOT operates distinct from any higher “authority,” like a pastor, bishop or superintendent. It hires, evaluates and sets the salary for the school head. It establishes tuitions, approves budgets, creates policies, and in rare circumstances, hears appeals of the head’s decisions.

A “Board of Limited (or Specialized) Jurisdiction”  (BLJ) is a model that might be seen in schools founded by a religious order, now sharing their authority with lay Boards. Typically, the order delegates specific areas of authority to the lay Board while retaining authority in all other areas. A religious order could delegate to the Board the authority to create the budget, for example, but keep its authority to hire the head. The bylaws or the constitution of the BLJ, signed by the order, make these distinctions explicit.

An “Advisory Council” (AC) is the most common model in Catholic schools today. The Council’s authority is advisory only. The Council recommends actions to the pastor or bishop, who has the authority to veto the recommendation. If a Council is doing its work well, the vast majority of the time, the pastor or diocese accepts the recommendations of the Council, so the practical impact of the Advisory Council’s work ends up similar to the other models.

With AC’s, the evaluation, hiring and firing of a principal (or president if the school is in a president-principal model) are the responsibility of the pastor (if a parish school) or the bishop/super (if a diocesan high school). Pastors (or supers) would typically ask for candid feedback from the Council as part of their evaluation.

In all three models, the purpose of the Board/Council is to promote the mission of the school in terms of strategic planning, policy making, and securing and protecting the finances of the school.

Wheres a Board/Council recommends policies that are broad in nature, indicating a direction--the "what?" and the "why?"--the principal’s job is to operationalize these policies in the day to day life of the school-- the "who?" and the "how?" and usually, the "when?"

When every group understands which lanes they’re in, Boards are a great blessing for our schools.

Heart and Soul!

A while back I visited a large parish in our diocese that had just completed construction of a new sanctuary. It was midafternoon on a sunny day, and the light poured through the stained glass windows, creating a serene, prayerful worship space, breath-taking in its beauty.

Equally striking to me was how quiet things were. There was no one in the Church or chapel, just a few parish workers in the offices. It was midweek, and since the parish did not have a school, the gym was empty, as were the parish classrooms. There were no cars in the parking lot.

I drove back to my parish and school and was hit by the contrast.

School was just out. Kids were noisily playing outside on the playground. Cars were coming and going for late pickups. There was basketball practice starting in the gym and a faculty meeting next door in the cafeteria. Mothers were chatting in the parking lot, having just finished planning for the upcoming Gala. Our Christian Service Coordinator and custodians were loading donations into a car, the products of a successful effort involving about 150 volunteer students, parents and teachers a few nights earlier.

The whole place was pulsating with activity.

We often talk about Catholic schools as the FUTURE of our Church, and I think that’s true. But I’m not sure we appreciate how important they are for our PRESENT Church.

Our schools make our parishes the focal point of family life. Between pickups and drop-offs, ball practices, school masses, scout meetings, music and play rehearsals, classroom projects, after school club meetings, student performances and service projects, a parent might be at the school three, sometimes four times/day. Each time, that parent is being slowly drawn into our community, establishing friendships with other families similarly drawn, and becoming, perhaps without noticing, ever more part of the family of faith.

A healthy, vibrant Catholic school is the very heart and soul of its parish, its energizing force, its fire.

May we who lead tend this fire with grace and wisdom! 

The “Secret Sauce” of Successful School Leadership

In my previous high school there was a 500 yard straight-away from our back student parking lot to the front street. That was just too much temptation for teenage boys! After school each day, one or two would rev up their cars and barrel down the straightaway.

I spoke with the students about it at assembly. Didn’t matter. The same kids who followed the rules kept doing so. The ones who didn’t, didn’t.

So I placed speed limit signs down the stretch. They were ignored.

Then I posted teachers after school down the drive, who reported transgressors. That made a dent, but only if the teachers were out there. What about after practice at 5 or 6 pm? And the teachers hated playing traffic cop.

Then I put in speed bumps. Aha!

I think often about our back straightaway in my leadership of Catholic schools. As leaders, our job is to establish a strong culture. But how do we build momentum for the norms necessary to do that? Do we create detailed handbooks that address every possible transgression? Do we establish “gotcha” policies that try to regulate behavior through external force or threat?

Or do we create policies and practices that help promote self regulation?

There’s a temptation for seniors in high to soften their schedules and avoid challenging classes. Their parents often support them. So without much comment from me, I announced that next year, seniors talking two or more A.P. classes would be given an optional study period in their schedules to “assist them in meeting the challenging demands of their academic load.” No one else had that option in our school. The following year A.P. enrollment swelled. Not surprisingly, so did the # of AP Scholars.

I noticed our school was giving too many A’s. Grade inflation is a rampant problem across the nation, but it was becoming an issue for us, too. So I talked about it with faculty, reminding them that an “A” was for superior achievement, not effort, and told them we were giving too many. An average student who worked hard should be able to “effort” their way to a B, I said, but the standard for an A may not be attainable for some.

The needle barely moved in the next round of grades.

So I announced as a routine part of our post year planning, this year and in the foreseeable future, I would ask teachers to review grade distributions within their department, and to prep for this review, I would begin sending teachers the school’s grade distributions, listed by department and teacher, every time we ran report cards. Without any further carping from me, the # of A’s began trending lower and B’s trending higher.

Can we create practices and policies that encourage our students and faculty to “choose the good” on their own, without threat or excessive regulation? That’s the “secret sauce,” really, to leading a successful school—really, to leading any organization.

Speed bumps > external regulations.

Three Salary Ideas Worth Exploring

The “salary chart” based on years of experience virtually guarantees we underpay our best teachers and overpay others. We can’t afford to do either.

So here are three ideas worth exploring:

—Broad salary bands—Create “benchmarks” based on years of experience, but leave a lot of flexibility on either side of that benchmark. So for example, the benchmark for a starting teacher might be 50k, plus or minus 5k, whereas the five year benchmark might be 55k, +/- 5k, the ten year mark 60, +/- 5k, up to the 20 year mark of 70k.

The scale depends on the market and the school’s resources. But I believe we should make it as wide as possible, starting with the lowest salary necessary to secure a young teacher and the highest possible on the back end. When young people join us, they can afford the low wages. But after marriage and kids, our salaries don’t keep pace with their exploding expenses. We lose a lot of talented teachers in their late 20’s, right when they’re hitting their stride!

The wider our scale, the faster we can accelerate salaries. It’s a mistake to raise salaries by focusing on the entry salary, pushing everything up from there. Rather, we should focus on widening step increases.

—Teachers as “Partners”—In law firms, new lawyers are “associates” who receive annual salaries. But after 8 years or so (it varies by firm), if chosen, they can become “partners” (owners, really) who share in the company profits. At year end, the firm distributes its revenue over expense to the partners depending on their “share.” Junior partners own a tinier portion of the firm than senior partners. If they are not chosen to become partners within a certain window, they leave.

How might this work in our schools? Full disclaimer: I’ve never done this. But what if our Council designated a certain number—let’s say, 30K– that if our school had a good year, with revenues exceeding expense by 30k or more, we would “revenue share” that 30k with our “partner” teachers, in addition to their salaries? We would have to set up some rigorous requirements for becoming “partners,” just as law firms do. But it would be a way to incentivize and reward long time teachers.

—More intermediate leadership positions-We typically only have two “levels” of leadership: assistant principals and principals. We may have talented teachers whom we’d like to pay more, but don’t have “positions” that justify the bumps they need for us to do so.

For large schools with multiple classrooms per grade, I like the idea of “lead teachers” for each grade, with extra curricular responsibilities.

I’ve known many small schools, led by beleaguered principals in need of admin help, but without the means to hire an AP. I’ve recommended they segment as K-2, 3-5, 6-8 “units” and then appoint a teacher as “unit leader” for each. They can then give these teachers a substantial bump in salaries for their additional responsibilities.

My Pre-Prom Letter to Parents

How do we communicate what we know as principal to parents about what teens are doing during their watch without intruding upon their rightful sovereignty, or coming off as paternalistic or preachy? It isn’t easy. What I’ve done is share stories of how other parents in my career have handled similar situations, using both good and bad examples. Here’s a letter I’ve sent to parents about after-Prom parties as an example.

Dear senior parents,

The school prom is a just three Saturdays away—on April 13. The official prom hours are between 7-11 p.m. It’s likely that many students will leave prior to 11, but even if they stay, the million dollar question will be: What will they do next? 

I do not presume to tell you how to handle your children that evening—in my view, that’s a parent’s decision. But part of my job as principal is to be a repository of information,  sharing with you what parents have done in the past. So let me me share three approaches parents have taken: 

The “default”—Kids were on their own. Some students “camped out”  all night on someone’s property, with dates sharing tents. Others rented hotel rooms. Some kids were home by a certain time as their parents instructed. 

The “good”—Three or four families organized a series of progressive “after-parties.” Recognizing their homes could not hold 100 kids at a time, they divided things up, and organized the night in two stages: with 3 “stage one” parties at their homes from 12-1:30, and then a “stage 2” big breakfast from 2–3 a.m. in the school cafeteria for everyone. The parents knew their kids should be home by 3:30. The “pact” the parents made with each other was there would be no drinking allowed at any of these venues. The parents invited everyone in the class so that no seniors were left out. 

The “bad”— Years ago in a previous school, a parent thought it would be OK to host a “small party” for 20 of their child’s “closest friends” at barn on their property, allowing them to drink if they turned in their car keys. But word got out around town, students began arriving from other schools, and soon there were 100+ kids, most of whom the parents didn’t know. Alcohol flowed freely. Propriety and confidentiality prevent me from becoming too specific about all that happened, but crimes were committed, arrests were made, things were posted on social media, parents from our school and other schools were outraged, and I was besieged with angry letters and phone calls. I spent the entire next week dealing with police, calling parents from other schools, and suspending students, with one expulsion.  It was a calamity. 

Please know we are here to support you. I am happy to offer the school cafeteria if three or four families want to host an after prom event. Give me a call to set something up. May God bless you these next few months—graduation is almost here! 

Onward and upward,

Faustin

The Crazy Life We Expect of our Student-Athletes—How High Schools Can Help Them Balance

At 6 a.m. every weekday, the lights to the nearby high school stadium turn on so that basketball players can begin their weightlifting and conditioning. Inquiring, I learned that access to the gym is too precious to waste time on conditioning—there they must run plays and hone their shooting and passing skills.  So on a typical day, a player wakes up at 5 a.m., conditions and weight-trains from 6-7:30, showers up, eats breakfast, attends school from 8:30 to 3:30, goes to practice from 4-6 p.m, comes home, showers, eats, does homework from 7:30 p.m to 9 or 10, then goes to sleep in time to be rested enough for the 5 am —9:30 p.m. gauntlet the next day. 

That’s the “new normal” for high school athletes in big time athletic programs. And on one level, it’s a beautiful, disciplined life for a kid, which keeps him out or her out of trouble. And look, I think there is tremendous value to high school athletics! Students learn to delay gratification, sacrifice for the good of the team, put themselves second, win and lose with grace, and build virtue in so doing. As my football coach in a former school once quipped: “My most important ‘trophies’ are letters from former players, thanking me for their experience, the memories they have, the brotherhood they formed with teammates, the values they learned that made them better husbands, fathers, and employees.” Summarizing, he said. “It’s a lot more important than football.” 

I agree with that!

But on another level, expecting this much from high school kids is greatly worrisome to me, for it demands such allegiance and sacrifice that kids have very little time for anything else.  

I want our student athletes to be competitive. I want our coaches to feel like they have the means to build programs that can win state championships. But I also want our schools to help our kids live balanced lives, where they can branch out into other areas, such as music, or student government, or service clubs, or participate in religious initiatives. I want them to have room in their schedules to take classes that are demanding if they are capable, without ramping down because of their athletic commitments.  I believe students flourish when they are encouraged to become “Renaissance” young men and women, active in many things, the more different, the better.

But am I just adding to their stress by asking them to juggle even more? Possibly! But here’s how I tried to help things stay balanced when I was a high school principal:

1. First, an 8-period schedule was essential. This gave athletes a chance to take weight-lifting and conditioning during the school day as part of their normal schedule. They met in multiple periods. Our coaches would have preferred having them all at once in an “Athletic P.E.,”  but the schedule wouldn’t allow it. However, they realized they could be more efficient rotating through weights —less standing around—with smaller classes.
2. Because of this extra period, I would not allow pre-school practices. Sleep matters, especially over time!
3. I would not allow Sunday practices for any reason. We “Kept holy the Sabbath” which allowed everyone, including our families, a chance to recharge.
4. All students were required to take two years of the Arts. Most of our athletes were in choir—some opted for a third and fourth year because they enjoyed it. Some even took band (see pic). This requirement helped bring some healthy variety to their lives.
5. We built “club time” into our weekly schedule, 25 minutes every Thursday, so that participation in other clubs was possible for our athletes and others with after school commitments.
6. Tutorials for classes were everyday after school, Monday through Thursday, 3:15-3:45. The teachers went from 7:30-4 p.m.  No practices could begin until 4 p.m. so that student-athletes could attend them. No tutorials on Fridays. 
7. The school day was a bit longer to fit everything in: 7:45 to 3:10 M—Th and  7:45-2:45 on Fridays.  Everyone, including teachers,  could leave 30 minutes earlier on Friday.  It felt like a “bonus” each week!
8. For students taking three or more A.P. classes in their senior year,  I assigned them one period a day, no more than two students at a time, to another teacher, where they could work quietly in the back of the class, while the teacher taught other students. This “study period” incentivized A.P. enrollments, gave our kids extra  time for homework, and didn’t cost us another teaching unit to host a study hall. (It also helped me create a working master schedule, as these periods could land anywhere on a student’s schedule, which helped since seniors taking A.P, classes had so many singletons in their schedule.)

These practices helped our student-athletes live less crazy lives. I’m including our bell schedule to show how it all fit together. Was it perfect? No! But it helped. 

Must the Head of a Catholic School Be a Practicing Catholic?

“Perhaps not.”

So suggests Bob Regan, then a senior search consultant for Carney-Sandoe, who wrote on the subject a few years back (“The 22% Factor: Hard Choices for Catholic Schools”).

 

Regan’s argument was both practical and philosophical. Practically, he pointed out that only 22% of the country considered themselves “practicing Catholics.“ Precisely at a time when so many Catholic schools needed entrepreneurial, innovative leadership, did it make sense to eliminate 78% of the talent pool? Could a faith-filled, serious minded ecumenical candidate do the job?

 

Philosophically, Regan raised the intriguing metaphor of “the ship of Theseus.” Theseus was the mythical king and founder of Athens, who rescued the children of Athens from  King Minos after slaying the minotaur, and escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this victory by taking that ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo.  But as the ship aged and the wood rotted, as it harbored in the Athenian port over the ages,  planks had to be replaced, one at a time, to keep the vessel seaworthy. Ancient philosophers asked: After centuries of maintenance, if each individual part of the ship had been replaced, was it still the ship of Theseus?

 

Regan asked, what are the “planks” of our schools that make us “Catholic?” Was it the sisters, who are no longer with us? Was it lay Catholic ministers? But now we have many non-Catholic teachers in our schools. Is it the students we serve? But now we have a broad ecumenical outreach; there Catholic schools today that are less than 50% Catholic.  Despite these tectonic changes, we are still “Catholic schools.” Perhaps, Regan suggested, the faith of the head of school is another “plank” that could be replaced without changing the essence of our institutions. 

 

Though he wrote this article in 2016, let’s give Regan his due: His arguments are even more poignant today! Few people would better understand the landscape of independent and Catholic school leadership than him, as he was head of the “Catholic practice” for Carney-Sandoe for many years.   I met him when my school hired him to search for my successor at Pope John Paul II in Nashville. I found him to be a thoughtful, committed advocate for our schools. 

 

And indeed, good leaders for our schools are hard to find! Perhaps it is the post-Covid effect, but I cannot remember a time when there were so many open school leader positions as there have been these last few years.  It doesn’t help that Catholic schools pay dramatically less for its leaders than some of our private school counterparts. According to the National Association of Independent Schools, the median salary of school “heads” in their schools was $288,000 in 2022-23! Some make more than $700,000 in the Dallas area!

 

I also find Regan’s philosophical argument intriguing. There’s no question that shifting the leadership in our schools from the nuns to the laity has jolted us in fundamental ways—but do we claim that we are no longer “Catholic” as a consequence? I suppose some might get snarky and  shout “Yes!” but I don’t believe that’s what most people believe. We work hard to carry on the heroic work the sisters began.  

 

In the end, however, I disagree with Regan!   

 

I think it is wrong to understand the Catholicity of the school as a "component part” of the operation that can be outsourced by the leader to another person, such as a "Director of Mission Effectiveness," or made the responsibility of the principal if the school uses the president-principal model. Building a joyful, authentic Catholic culture is the very essence of creating a Catholic school, the whole “kit and caboodle” that makes us distinctive from other schools. To be the architect in building such a culture requires someone who understands the Catholic faith--its idiosyncrasies, rituals, feast days, sacramental practices, songs, and common prayers--from the “inside-out” --that is to say, someone who has lived it and who has been formed by it. 

 

There are hundreds of decisions a school leader makes which tell the tale: how that person evaluates a prospective teacher or coach, what that person talks about in school assemblies, what is prioritized in professional development, how that person leads his or her school through a tragedy, what that person chooses to celebrate as a school, what he or she prioritizes in spending, whether the leader builds a partnership with priests or bishops, how actively the school leader supports the efforts of the parish or the diocese. All of these “tributary” decisions flow into a larger “river” that becomes the culture of the school and the air that students breathe. 

 

Tasking a person to lead our schools without this lived experience would be like hiring a GM of a baseball team who had corporate leadership experience but didn’t know anything about baseball. He may have executive skills, but ultimately, he wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to evaluate talent, or fathom what ignites the passions of its fans, or understand baseball’s reverence for its history. 

Could he task his manager with all of those “baseball specific” things? No, the manager is too preoccupied with handling players and strategizing for games—in other words, the day to day.

 

If Catholic schools were just about what occurs in the classroom like any other school, then perhaps an ecumenical leader might have the technical skills to lead it well.  But Catholic education is fundamentally about formation as the end goal. The classroom teaching and what occurs in the daily life of the school is a means to this end. 

Let me add this comment, too, at least for diocesan schools:  We don’t lead our schools apart from the bishop or pastors! We are institutions of the Church, not Boards of Trustees. We must communicate well with the Church and try to speak in one voice. It strikes me that trying to do this as a non-Catholic would be analogous to having a native speaker and non native person trying to communicate, with the non native person having only a rudimentary vocabulary and little comprehension for the nuances of the dialect. 

It would be quite hard for an ecclesial leader to hand over the “keys” to such an important “vehicle” for raising kids in the faith to someone who isn’t of that same faith! Frankly, I don’t know of any pastor or bishop who would do so. I don’t think it’s a good idea for independent Catholic schools, either, but whatever theoretical argument one may make for them, it’s a non-negotiable from the diocesan side. 

 

And what of the ship of Theseus? My response to the conundrum is this:  It ceases to be the ship of Theseus when it is no longer commanded by Theseus.  Without its leader, it becomes a relic, a museum piece, a part of Athenian history. 

 

Still, we would do well to pay heed to what Regan has told us. There is burning need for good Catholic leaders. Dioceses would do well to think through innovative means to improve the pipeline, perhaps by incentivizing assistant principals with better pay and on-the-job certification, requiring only a minimum of classwork.  Moving toward the president-principal governance model, even for elementary schools, is also a great way to onboard new principals, if the president has principal experience. 

 

Whatever works!  But we cannot let supply and demand issues change the fundamental nature of our schools. If we’re willing to do that, we may as well close up shop now.