In our final newsletter of the year provides us a great chance to look back at our activities of the year. This abbreviated Annual Report should give everyone a chance to see what we’ve done and working toward. We’ve been hoping to establish a more collaborative community to support more vibrant Catholic schools. To that end:

• We planned a Diocesan Education Summit at Niagara University. Dr. Kevin Baxter from Notre Dame keynoted (“drop a pebble in that hole”) the event. Over 300 people attended and participated in shaping our common future.

• We embarked on a collaborative strategic planning initiative led by Dr. Tad Dickel. 11 of our schools participated in the program.

• We launched the new tradition of 8th and 12th grade Masses at the Cathedral in September. We also celebrated an 8th grade retreat in April

• We introduced a number of new activities to offer students new opportunities to connect with their schools–kickball, bowling, golf, math, spelling bee, chess, and science fairs.

• We continued our work on the Diocesan and school scorecards in order to understand our successes and challenges

• We implemented a new Diocesan standardized assessment (STAR) and worked on increasing our capacity to use that data

• We’ve developed new Operating Principles for our parish schools and new Bylaws for our Regional Schools in order to meet the challenges of the Road to Renewal

• We’ve continued our work to meet the challenges of gender distress and will soon be providing new guidelines for our school leaders

• We’ve developed new online courses for our teachers to familiarize them with the Church and Catholic schools

• We’ve pursued new opportunities for school choice like charter schools (with little immediate success)

It’s been a great year! Our hope is that we’ve helped create more vibrant schools as well as improving the leadership capacity of our schools. As we look forward to next year, many of these initiatives will need another year of cultivation to grow.

Previous blogs can be found here. Want to keep up with the conversations surrounding Catholic education? Set up your own Google Alert, subscribe to this newsletter by clicking "follow," or subscribe to the Catholic School Matters podcast.

Dr. Tim Uhl

In celebration of the incredible things our schools, teachers, and students have done this year we have put together a year in review. Take a moment to reflect on the accomplishments of your school, the joy your students experienced, and the excitement of the future. Be welcome to share this with your greater school community and perhaps make one of your own!

2022-2023 Year in Review

Previous "Academic Corner" posts from Kari

• Please use this form to register for the June 27th principal meeting. Here is the working agenda.

Here's the link to the Office Blog

6/16/23 Complete 12 Required Drills; Four must be Lockdown Drills

7/1/23 First day 2023-2024 Textbook Orders are allowed

7/7/23 NYSED SEDREF Summer Update Due to NYSED

8/1/23 NYSED MST/STEM Grant Submission Deadline

8/25/23 End of Year Tasks, Gov’t Programs Checklist

MST Grant Year 6 Application Update: NYSED notified all schools on 6/8/23 that the online application is now available. Please consider submitting your applications online via the Business Portal as that is their preferred submission method. See my MST advice from 5/23/23 to help you put your MST applications together.

Government Programs Checklist for 2023-2024: Since there will be no Catholic School Matters in July, I thought I would send out my updated “Government Programs Checklist for Principals” for 2023-2024. Please consider posting this list in your office or saving a copy to your computer to help you stay on top of important deadlines for this coming school year.

Records Retention List: As the year draws to a close, you may want to think about destroying some of the records you have been retaining from prior school years. Please refer to the attached NYSED list of records that must be retained and the number of years you must keep them before you securely destroy them.

Previous posts from Mr. Riso

1. Weekly principal Zooms at 9:00 am on Wednesdays.
2. June Principal Meeting, June 27th, St. Andrew's
   
3. New Teacher Inservice (including VIRTUS), August 29th
4. School Board workshop September 22nd
5. Fall Professional Development day, October 6, 2023 @ St. Mary's HS.

1. This spring's proposed new Operating Principles for parish schools.
2. The Fall 2022 Diocesan Health Scorecard; The spring 2022 Diocesan Health Scorecard.
3. School Pastor's Administrative Guide
4. "Principal Task List." This is organized as a living Google Doc by month.
5. New Policy Manual for all Catholic schools in the Diocese of Buffalo.
6. New Operations Manual for Diocesan Catholic schools.
7. Administrator Goal Sheet and the new Administrator evaluation form

This season's Catholic School Matters podcast season wrapped up with a conversation with Dr. Gerald Cattaro of Fordham. Jerry is a legend in Catholic education circles! is Previous episodes:

• Elizabeth Goettl joins the podcast to discuss her retirement from Cristo Rey schools and lessons learned
  
• Dr. Tony Galla, Buffalo native and most recently a Regional Superintendent in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, joins the podcast to discuss his decision to return to school leadership at his alma mater, Bishop Alemany High School
  
• This week's episode is a conversation with Marc Martinez of Houston, the founding principal of St. Peter's Catholic Career & Technical High School in Houston.
  
• conversation with Dr. Antonio Felix of Los Angeles. Antonio directs the PLACE Corps, an LMU-sponsored teaching program for teacher volunteers.
  
• a conversation with Greg Dhuyvetter, the Executive Director of WCEA (Western Catholic Education Association).

Here is a link to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.

A weekly newsletter of resources to spur enrollment and excellence in our Catholic schools.

Email: catholicschoolmatters@gmail.com
Website: www.wnycatholic.org
Location: Buffalo, NY, USA
Phone: 716-847-5520
Twitter: @WNYCatholicEd

1. Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (2001) by Richard Rohr
   

2. A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life & Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (2022) by Troy Senik

3. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (2023) by W. Chan Kim

4. Community: The Structure of Belonging (2018) by Peter Block

5. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2007) by William Easterly

Click this link for a full list of my professional reading

June 6, 2023 "Discomfort"

May 23, 2023 "Operating Principles & Bylaws"

May 16, 2023 "Roswell Park"

May 9, 2023 "Security Workshop"

May 2, 2023 "Strategic Planning"

For previous newsletters, click this link

A few years ago I set out to write a book which would explore the challenges of Catholic school leadership. My premise that there are no easy answers and that we have to learn from our (and other's) mistakes in order to form a mindset appropriate for orchestrating conflict proved prescient as we all faced completely new and unexpected challenges in 2020. The book,Orchestrating Conflict: Case Studies in Catholic Leadership is now available on Amazon or on the Barnes & Noble site in print or e-book formats. The book explores issues in Catholic school leadership and the tensions between building community and following Church policies and introduces deliberate practice as a method for leadership formation. Most recently, I have completed a new book proposal so book #2 is underway!