Schools, administrators ready for new year

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

As the new school year starts – next week for many – the diocesan Catholic Schools Office is working on helping schools grow – and be Christ-centered.
Administrators said they are focusing on communication and strategic planning, and also addressing safety and financial reporting.
And, for students, there’s new standardized, computer-based test. “Measures of Academic Progress” is replacing the paper test “Terra Nova.”
David Perda, the superintendent, said that his office and the diocesan Catholic Schools Board want to help the schools, some of which are facing declining enrollment, to shift from a “survival mode to a growth mindset,” to start thinking long-term instead of just year-to-year.
They’re encouraging schools to collaborate and share resources.
The Catholic Schools Office did that itself by bringing Michael J. Clark on board this summer. As associate superintendent of secondary schools, he is the head of school for the three central Catholic high schools, instead of them each having a president or headmaster. He said he is to equip them “to operate as a system within the larger network of our diocesan schools.” (The central Catholic high schools are Holy Name and St. Peter-Marian in Worcester, and St. Bernard in Fitchburg.)
 The office is trying to help schools grow by encouraging them to use data to help them plan, Superintendent Perda said.
The office is also working with the school board on a strategic plan for all the Catholic schools.
“We’re thinking about strategy and where we want to go,” Superintendent Perda said. “We want it to come from the people who are engaged” – faculty, staff, parents and students, tapping into the expertise of professionals who’ve worked in schools for years.
“We’ve been at this since this spring,” he said. “We’ve been gathering data from stakeholders. We did surveys and focus groups with Catholic schools’ staff, clergy, parents, members of school boards.” The focus groups enabled people to say more than they could on the surveys, he said.
“We’re poring through the data … and prioritizing the work” to do in response to the data, the superintendent said. Then they’ll establish committees in which stakeholders can plan how to do it.
The hope is to have a strategic plan sketched out this fall, then work on implementing it, Superintendent Perda said.
SWOT plans from the diocesan high schools will inform the strategic plan, Mr. Clark said. This fall, each of those schools is to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).
The strategic plan will also include efforts to market schools on a limited budget, Superintendent Perda said. And there are efforts to make or strengthen connections with colleges and businesses “that share our mission” and benefit from Catholic school graduates with Catholic values.
Strategic planning is a way to strengthen a school system from a management point of view, Mr. Clark said. A way to strengthen it from a curriculum point of view is the “Atlas” online program, on which teachers can post their lesson plans, he said.
Strategic planning and Atlas. he said, lend themselves to solidarity (working together for a common mission) and subsidiarity (each school has its own manifestation of mission).
Superintendent Perda talked about Atlas in conjunction with catholicity.
“We need to stay true to our mission as Catholic schools,” he said. “We need to make sure the schools keep Christ in the center of everything they do.”
Through the use of Atlas, anyone can see how catholicity is integrated into the curriculum, and teachers can exchange ideas.
Superintendent Perda believes that Catholic schools play a central role in preparing the next generation of Catholic leaders, who need to be equipped to articulate, defend and live out Catholic values.
“The spiritual lives of our students need to be tended to in a very explicit and purposeful way,” said Mr. Clark. “Education is an extension of evangelization.”
He said a number of students are not Catholic, and some are not Christians. But “they see something in our schools,” and appreciate that the schools are true to their mission.
Meg Kursonis, headmaster of St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School in Worcester, said at least 45 percent of their students are not Catholic.
“They don’t come seeking him (God) anymore, but they find him when they’re here,” she said. “These teachers are teaching God all day long, in everything they do. … When a child pushes another at the bubbler, the first thing we ask is, ‘Is that what Jesus would want you to do?’”
Third-grade teacher Stephanie Nordahl was preparing her classroom for the coming school year. The mother of three St. Peter’s students (and a 2018 graduate herself), posted “Let your light shine” on a bulletin board.
“God has made us all unique, and we all have talents,” Mrs. Nordahl said, explaining that she plans to use a story about a firefly to impart that lesson. She has cutouts of canning jars, like people use to catch fireflies in, for students to put their thumbprints on.
“They’ll share something special God’s given them, that they can shine at,” she said.
In addition to promoting the faith, the Catholic Schools Office is working on is safety. Schools already have safe environment protocols to protect people from abuse, Mr. Clark said, but there is a need to address concerns about the safety of the physical space.
After the school shooting in Florida earlier this year, a school safety subcommittee of the Catholic School Board was formed. Fitchburg Police Chief Ernest F. Martineau is chairman.
Schools have shared with the office their emergency response plans, which have been shared with law enforcement, the superintendent said. But he said updates, staff training and centralizing of information is needed.
Centralization is also being sought in the financial area. William J. Mulford, associate superintendent for business, said they are trying to get all schools to use the diocesan chart of accounts. This chart is maintained by the Office of Fiscal Affairs. Mr. Mulford said this will help the Catholic Schools Office assist the schools. Superintendent Perda said the schools and parishes will still have control of their finances and their books.

All Saints Academy gets new leader

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
WEBSTER – All Saints Academy has a new head of school – who experienced its Catholic identity when seeking the job.
“You get a sense of our identity when you walk through our buildings,” said Joan E. Matys, who started July 2. “Our Catholic identity was visible when I interviewed here. Not just the crucifixes or the bulletin boards, but from the way people interacted with each other. … You have that sense of acceptance, of compassion, of faith.”
Asked how she hopes to promote that and teach the faith, she replied, “We have a very strong staff.” Teachers arrange service projects that extend the faith beyond the classroom and get students to take leadership roles in Masses and other devotions.
Among faculty members is Sister Ellen McAdam, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur who teaches science.
“The children love her,” Mrs. Matys said. “She is a young and vibrant teacher.” She said she thinks what Sister Ellen brings spiritually is inherent in the way she teaches.
Mrs. Matys described her own relationship with God as “very personal … always a work in progress. … And it’s daily conversations, as well as prayer.”
She and her husband of 28 years, Martin E. Matys, have two adult children. The couple are officially members of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Northborough, though she’s been finding peace attending Masses at St. Mary Parish in Shrewsbury, near where they live, she said.
Mrs. Matys said she’s blessed to be at All Saints Academy.
“It is vibrant. … It’s young. … It’s a newly formed academy,” built on decades of history, she said. “And as we’ve come together I believe we’ve formed a stronger school,” with two campuses that allow room for growth.
 All Saints was formed in September 2016 from the schools of St. Louis Parish (St. Louis Elementary) and Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish (St. Anne Elementary).
“My vision is to respect the individual histories of where we’ve come from,” Mrs. Matys said of the two schools. “They have set a marvelous foundation for this new academy.
“My wish is to grow and expand the school in terms of enrollment (and) opportunities for students and teachers. … What we offer is everything you could get in public school and more, in addition to our faith.”
  Mrs. Matys said David Grenier, retiring head of school, has done “an outstanding job of pulling the schools together.” She said he’s done the hard work, with Father William F. Sanders, St. Louis’ pastor; Father Adam Reid, Sacred Heart’s pastor, and the board of trustees, especially chairman Kevin Brassard.
These leaders praised Mrs. Matys, who was once principal of Assumption Elementary School in Millbury and taught at St. Bernadette Elementary School in Northborough and public schools in Shrewsbury and Hopkinton – every grade level from pre-K through grade 8.
Mrs. Matys said that, when she finished as a middle school English and literature teacher at St. Bernadette’s last spring, the school gave her a crucifix which she’s hanging in one of her offices here. She has an office in both the elementary school on Negus Street and the middle school on Day Street.
Her own education included attending St. Peter-Marian Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School in Worcester, and earning a bachelor’s in sociology from Wheaton College in Norton, and a master’s of education from Lesley University in Cambridge. She also got a certificate from Boston College’s Emmaus Program for Catholic school leadership.
“What set Joan apart was her rock solid experience in education, particularly Catholic education; her leadership skills, vision, and, of course, her passion for the role of a strong Catholic education,” said Mr. Brassard. “All Saints Academy has worked very hard over the past several years to create its own identity, melding the benefits of two schools with very strong histories and their own unique traditions. The search committee felt very strongly that Joan was someone who could take what we have built to this point and energize our next phase of growth and development.”
“I’ve already seen her enthusiasm, her attention to detail, notable work ethic,” said Father Reid, who also expressed appreciation for Mr. Grenier.
Mr. Grenier said he couldn’t feel more secure in leaving the students and families in Mrs. Matys’ hands.
“She brings to the academy a rich background in Catholic education,” said Father Sanders, noting that Catholic identity is important to school leaders. “We’re looking forward to working with her.”