Catholic School Community

Leader as Peacemaker

During our principals' retreat the retreat director, Sister Cele Breen, SCL shared some excellent insights regarding the Principal as Peacemaker.  She shared several thoughts on peace with us, but one particular quote stood out for me, "If you disagree with me, you have something to give me; if you are sincere and seek the truth as best you may, honestly with modest care, your thought is growth to mine, you deepen my vision." --Dom Helder Camara

As administrators we engage in many critical conversations--marked by high stakes, high emotions, and differences of opinion.  I find this quote to be a good marker to place within my mind and heart during those conversations.    

 

Social Media: Fad or Revolution?

 

Do not be afraid of new technologies! These rank “among the marvelous things” – inter mirifica – which God has placed at our disposal to discover, to use and to make known the truth, also the truth about our dignity and about our destiny as his children, heirs of his eternal Kingdom. (From the Vatican, 24 January 2005, the Feast of Saint Francis de Sales, Patron Saint of Journalists)

One dimension of the New Evangelization is to appropriately utilize the new means of communication available to our education ministry.  Although I am a "fountain pen guy in a would of twitter," I think it is important for us to manage and appropriately utilize social media.

Principals in the Archdiocese of Denver Catholic Schools were recently provided a professional development session in  the use of social media as a marketing, branding, and communication tool.  Three schools--Blessed Sacrament, St. John the Evangelist, and At. Anthony--shared their best practices in the use of social media, providing principals with many good practices and ideas to utilize in their schools.

As a follow up to the development session and to assist our schools choosing to utilize social media, the Office of Catholic Schools is contracting with a resource person to conduct social media training and development to principals, pastors teachers, committees, vendors and other stakeholders as necessary to help schools achieve their goals.

Social Media--fad or revolution?  It is neither, but well within the tradition of Catholic schools' engagement in prudent innovation.  

 

 

 

Principals' Retreat: Spirituality in Leadership

Catholic school principals today must balance their functional, institutional responsibilities with the core of their educational ministry--spiritual leadership in building a community of faith.  Principals in the Archdiocese of Denver have been asked to maintain an audit of their extremely valuable resource of time. What percent of their time in a given week or month is devoted to functional administrative tasks compared to the percentage of time they devote to spiritual leadership and formation of students and teachers?

Time must be set aside and protected to engage themselves and their community in prayer, reflection, catechesis, and formation in order to cultivate a true community of disciples.  This doesn't just happen.  It must be intentional with time set aside to devote to formation rather than functionality.

Each year we provide principals with a two day retreat at beautiful  St. Malo in the magestic Rocky Mountains. In this setting, visited by John Paul II during World Youth Day in 1993, time is set aside in a busy calendar for principals to "be" together--in prayer, reflection, catechesis, and socializing.  

It is hoped that this respite from function is a gift to principals that will, in turn, be shared with their school communities in ways throughout the school year.