Faith, Excellence, Stewardship

So this is one of the two key summaries of what we are doing in Catholic schools in Los Angeles. It centers on  Faith, Excellence and Stewardship and the other one will center on Growth, Leadership and Innovation. It will take me a few posts to summarize all six areas. Although there is some overlap they all do require a bit of explanation.

I will begin with Faith, Excellence and Stewardship, which are not unique terms by any stretch in Catholic education but they are used to ground us in what is most essential to focus on each and every day. Just like principals and teachers, we can get caught up in the immediate fires that pop up every day and lose sight of the big picture. By having a set focus, it keeps us grounded and aimed in the right direction. I will provide a brief summary of each in the next week or so but these themes will be re-visited throughout the blog. Today I will start, as we always should in Catholic schools, with Faith.

Faith
The reason we do what we do and the reason we are what we are. Faith must be at the core of each one of our schools. As we delve into other areas of focus for our schools you will see that there is a lot of flexibility and innovation that we encourage at the school site level. This is essential if we are to grow our Catholic schools and continue to educate students in the coming decade. But with that approach to innovation it is equally essential that we maintain the core of who we are as educators - the Catholic faith as defined by Christ the educator.

When Catholic identity is strong at a school it is tangibly felt when one walks on the campus. It is so much more than a simple religion class - it defines how adults work with students, how discipline is conducted, how coaches work with athletes, and how adults interact with other adults. Ours is a redemptive faith so it lends itself perfectly to educating young students in how to behave and how to learn and grow from mistakes.

Another key aspect of Faith is that the sense of shared community and values is what creates the Catholic culture that leads to such astounding results. The great Catholic schools work to ensure that every adult on campus is focused and concerned about each child on campus. So when the third grade student is running down the hallway and making too much noise, the sixth grade teacher can lean out of her classroom and correct the student by name.

One fear that I have is that some of those in Catholic education want to downplay the faith component of their school. I have heard this most frequently from school board members and parents on the marketing teams but it needs to be said that it also sometimes originates with teachers and/or the principal. The idea is that somehow, by downplaying the role of faith in the school, it can better appeal to prospective parents. In my experience this tends to occur more frequently at higher income schools. The problem with this thinking is two-fold (well, there are many problems but I will cite two): one is that the one aspect of our schools that is exclusively ours is our Catholic faith. Other schools, most notably charter schools, have co-opted many of the aesthetic aspects of Catholic schools. So local and autonomous governance, uniforms, strong discipline, and rigorous academics are all found in many charters. But while Catholic schools have all of these aspects, they also have faith and that is something that charters can't co-opt.

The second problem with the diminishing of Catholic identity at a Catholic school is that faith is not some add-on that contributes to our success. It is the essence and primary reason for our success. If we don't have faith throughout our schools then we are simply charter schools that charge tuition and we will never win that competition.

Again, much more on this as the blog moves forward and I especially welcome your input and feedback on these topics as I am just touching on them cursorily.