Creativity and vision begin to emerge!

A new beginning

As we approach the 20-21 school year it would be easy to give in to fear and trepidation.  Vision and mission must take over!  A vision of a renewed even better Catholic school model and a mission to join with the marginalized families in partnership so that young people can learn and blossom!  As Partnership Schools NY comes to Cleveland we welcome their successful programs, curriculum, teacher prep, leadership training and just adding to the already loving Catholic school community here in Cleveland.  Christian Dallavis is the assistant superintendent for Partnership Schools has been working directly with the staffs and faculties of St. Thomas Aquinas and Archbishop Lyke elementary schools brings a deep sense of faith and hope!

"Talk without action is a speech."--T. Boone Pickens

A recent headline in our dying newspaper, The Plain Dealer,  "Cleveland schools still stuck in planning stages for ungraded online "enrichment," during coronavirus closure," was frightening.  35,000 students have had nothing from Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) save a few "packets" for learning.  This headline was from April 8!  Still nothing, eleven days later!  

I was told once by a young faculty member that I used too many war analogies.  I recently read (I forget where, another age issue, that people over 60 are entitled to use WWII stories and quotes.  Colin Powell is a general, but a bit younger.  I apply that permission to that quote as well!  In this article, "School Choice, Adaptability, and Sainthood:  Lessons from Cleveland," the story is very different!

This is, as my high school geometry teacher, Mr. Serpe, would point out, "the beauty part!"  Catholic schools are nimble and driven by a mission that includes the whole child.  Even if that means reading stories on Youtube or challenging the young students to read a "hard" book.  Bishop Roger Gries even said a Facebook Live Mass for the young school children and their families.  That same young faculty member mentioned above shared a picture recently through Instagram which showed the sidewalk in front of her house where Francie's (her young daughter) pre-k teacher snuck over to leave a sweet message and Francie was DElighted!  It read as follows:

Francie,

We like to call you  lastname

Always full of pep (rhymes with lastname)

Athletic, friendly, opposite of mean

Friendliest girl I've ever seen

Mrs. Teachername with a picture of a heart!

As Jean Baptiste De la Salle said:  "You (the teacher) can perform miracles by touching the hearts of those entrusted to your care."

Meanwhile CMSD has so many moving parts, it is still planning.  I am sure that the pre-k teachers at CMSD would love to do this and feel the same way, however all the issues involved most likely prevent this kind of contact. 

The Road to $3,000,000

As part of our agreement with the Cleveland Diocese and the Board of Partnership Schools NY is that we will secure in cash and pledges $3,000,000 by June 1, 2020.  These gifts are for the first two years of operation in Cleveland,  of that we need to have $2,000,000 frontloaded over the first year (which includes two calendar years thank God).  We have been working for two years to garner that kind of support from both local and national donors.  Believe it or not, we have a pathway to this goal.  Two national foundations are considering large gifts, a local foundation is considering a large gifts, and this past week two individual donors committed to $350,000!  We should have a good sense of the foundation gifts by mid-May.  We will be left with possibly raising as much as $600,000 to complete the goal.

This past week a daily reading held the story of the apostles who had fished all night and come up empty.  Jesus came along and told them to go out again and this time cast their net on the right side of the boat.  I can only imagine what the apostles were thinking.  Hey, who the heck do you think you are...we are the fishermen...what do you know?  But they went out anyway, probably muttering under their breath.  Remember they had been fishing all night!  Lo and behold, they caught so many fish (153 to be exact) they could hardly lift the net into the boat.  What I love the most about this story is at the end, as the apostles rowed the last 100 yards they found breakfast waiting for them--fish cooking over a charcoal fire, and some bread...cooked by Jesus!

Another quote from Jean Baptiste De la Salle"  "Often remind yourself that God is with you."