Welcome to the 2007-08 school year. As usual, I hope this year is our best ever.  I give thanks to our students, teachers, and parents for the many spiritual gifts, talents and extraordinary efforts that make Blessed Sacrament Catholic School a school of excellence year after year. Your dedication gives me tremendous motivation to maintain these many strengths and work with you to make our school even better. 

Toward the end of last year (after the Parent Surveys and after much consultation with teachers, school council, Monsignor Conley and other schools) we started updating our Strategic Plan. In meetings held over the summer, we came close to cementing our priorities for the foreseeable future. In this letter, I want to share with you the major areas we will be seeking to improve.

  1. Catholicity: Since Blessed Sacrament Parish has always been such a strong parish with so many opportunities to serve the Lord, we often overlook the grand plan to ensure that our faith is at the center of the school and that each student’s faith formation is organized in the best manner possible.  In order for this to become a reality, our Strategic plan will lay out a vision for ensuring that all that we do is tied back to our desire to know, love, and serve God.
    1.  In the short term, we’re going to revisit the way that our Liturgies correspond to the liturgical calendar and the life of the parish (all school Masses on the actual major feast day, greater student interaction with Monsignor Conley and the Parish Staff to carry on the Parish mission in and out of school, a children’s Mass every day, more study of the saints).
    2. We are also looking into ways that our service projects and classroom celebrations can incorporate more memorable and meaningful faith forming activities (we hope the required self-sacrifice and distancing from constant fun and parties puts more balance in our student life here at the school).
    3. Finally, we’re going to provide opportunities for more formal collaboration and study amongst parents on Catholic parenting in a secular society.

            In the long-term, I feel that success with these goals will enable us to build the
            foundation necessary to achieve the goals we’re always working on. These include
            inviting every family to be more empowered to take on their rightful role as
            primary religious educator; managing the root cause and aftermath of bullying and
            un-Christian behavior; and bringing more prayer and Christian sportsmanship to
            our Athletic Department, to name just a few. Probably the one area where we can
            do the most for our students considering the age we live in is to fine-tune and
            strengthen our Genesis curriculum (instruction on John Paul II’s beautiful and
            biblical approach toward vocations and towards relationships in marriage).

  1. Academic Achievement: The achievement level of our students in all of their areas of study is a great tribute to their hard work, the hard work and challenges provided by our caring teachers, and of the support we receive from parents for high academic standards. We have, however, been aware of for some time now a slight decrease in subject area grades (especially in the Middle School at the A, B.& C levels) and of a slight decrease in achievement in Math scores on standardized testing. We are also aware of the need for an intervention to deal with apathy and the spiraling downward performance of unmotivated students.

      One of the areas we are coming to terms with is to not let our school be held
      captive by the national and local trend towards focusing only the results high stakes
      testing. It is very important that our school provide a traditional, classical Catholic
      curriculum and that we empower our teachers to teach for a great purpose than a
      “Proficient” score on a standardized test (see Classical Curriculum efforts below).
      Of course, it is my belief that an academic program that rises above the
      short-term benefits of exam cramming will set the stage for students to be able to
      soar later on in their careers (being able to truly think for themselves). Our
      proposed priorities, therefore will be:

         a.  Goals for higher grades for each student and providing more mentoring and
leadership development to make this a reality 
        b. Focus on improving Math & Science curriculum by slowing down
instruction to allow for greater mastery (in the Middle School), continuing the
push for more success in  mastering Math facts (AND ACHIEVING
WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF NUMERACY) in the K-5th grades, and
Adopting Accelerated Math K-6. We are also looking for more Science and Math
extension activities .  
c .Language Arts, specifically writing: enhance the opportunities for both
    creative and expository writing.

  1. Classical School vs. a School under the Typical Modern Secular Model: The following improvements are planned:
    1. We are revamping our reading lists and giving a section of the library over to the classics.
    2. In the Intermediate School, each class will read 2 classic books for fun and we hope to incorporate the classical curriculum elective into a revamped Spanish, Art, Technology, Study Skills elective.
    3. In the Middle School, we hope to offer electives true to a classical curriculum.

We have much work to do to truly be the kind of school I would like to see us be. However,  I do believe that the people of Blessed Sacrament would be up for the challenge. A good start for everyone will be to start this year off with a determination to help and support your child’s teacher.  We have planned an Open House for the k-5 on September 4th at 7:00. Put this date on your calendar. An orientation for new students in the middle school (that would mean all 6th graders) will be held on August 24th.  Understanding how we can help our school be better is dependent on communication between all parties. Please feel free to come and see me (or any member of our staff) whenever you have a question or an idea.