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November 9, 2008

Archdiocesan schools excel at Blue Ribbon

By Michelle Martin

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Award winners

  • Cardinal Joseph Bernardin
    9250 W. 167th Street, Orland Hills
    749 students; Student-teacher ratio: 21:1
  • St. James School
    821 N. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights
    496 students; Student-teacher ratio: 24:1
  • St. Mary School
    50 N. Buffalo Grove Road, Buffalo Grove
    469 students; Student-teacher ratio: 16:1
  • Pope John XXIII
    1120 W. Washington St., Evanston
    343 students; Student-teacher ratio: 15:1
  • Queen of All Saints
    6320 N. Lemont Ave.
    608 students; Student-teacher ratio: 18:1
  • St. Viator High School
    1213 E. Oakton St., Arlington Heights
    1,089 students; Student-teacher ratio: 16:1

Source: No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon School applications

Parents who send their children to Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago have expressed their belief — through their time, tuition payments and commitment — that Catholic schools offer a superior education.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Education apparently agree, awarding six archdiocesan schools No Child Left Behind- Blue Ribbon Awards this year, after seven schools received recognition last year. Both times, the archdiocese was the school system with the largest number of schools so honored.

What makes them so good?

According to the principals of the schools honored this year, the answer includes the dedication of their faculty and staff, the hard work of their students, their accountability to parents and an increased commitment over the past several years to professional and curriculum development.

St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights was the only high school in the archdiocese honored this year. It’s principal, Eileen Manno, spoke of the school’s innovations in curriculum, extracurricular programs and efforts to connect students to their community, by, for example, requiring them to complete 100 hours of community service over their four years.

“We want them to understand that part of being Catholic is serving people beyond the walls of the school,” said Manno, who herself graduated from St. Matthias School and Alvernia High School on the Northwest Side.

Advanced curriculum

In terms of curriculum, Manno said, St. Viator works to give its students the skills to keep learning even after they leave school.

“About four or five years ago, we began to shift the content and skills to a more global perspective to prepare the kids for the 21st century,” she said. “We are preparing kids for a world that we don’t know.”

While those students have scored in the top 10 percent nationally for the last five years — the baseline to apply for a Blue Ribbon award — they come in with all ability levels, Manno said. The school’s emphasis on reaching each student helps them succeed.

“When everybody started talking about differentiated instruction, we realized we’ve always done that,” she said. “Care and concern for the individual student — that’s always been the reason why teachers are involved in Catholic education.”

Less than a mile away from St. Viator, St. James School in Arlington Heights also was recognized.

Development

St. James principal Judy Pappas attributed the recognition archdiocesan schools are receiving to an emphasis on curriculum and using teaching methods that have been shown to help students learn more.

“We have been made responsible to be more expert in the area of curriculum,” she said. “In my suburban school district, the public schools are excellent, so we have to have a rigorous curriculum. Our parents demand that. Now we have research that tells us what works and what will help students learn more, and we use those methods when we are working on professional development with our teachers.”

At St. James, teachers begin as early as kindergarten classes helping students learn to organize their thoughts so they can demonstrate that they’ve considered questions and can give logical answers, she said. As they get older, students spend more time in groups, teaching and learning from one another, and uppergrade students learn how to take better notes, she said.

She also received advice in how to apply for the award from St. Alphonsus Liguori principal Peter Tantillo, whose school received the award last year and who was at Our Lady of the Wayside School in 1997 when it won, she said.

Stephanie DiPrima, the principal at Queen of All Saints School, 6230 N. Lemont Ave., in the Sauganash neighborhood, also called on Tantillo, as well as Roy Rash, the principal at St. Francis de Sales School in Lake Zurich and Franciscan Sister Ann Busch at St. Anne School in Barrington.

Celebrating news

Queen of All Saints is proudly proclaiming its status as a No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon School with banners on both of its buildings, blue ribbons tied around the trees on campus, car magnets for school families and wristbands for students.

Inside the school, a “Blue Ribbon Wall of Fame” holds the official plaque and letters of congratulations. “It’s a wonderful affirmation of our mission and philosophy and the ministry of our faculty and staff, as well as our students and parents,” DiPrima said.

Members of the team evaluating Queen of All Saints’ archdiocesan school-improvement process recommended that administrators consider applying for the award last year, she said.

Rosalie Musiala, principal at Pope John XXIII School in Evanston, applied for a Blue Ribbon the previous two years, but had the school’s applications disqualified on technicalities. Pope John XXIII is sponsored by St. Nicholas and St. Mary parishes in Evanston.

“I kept applying because I believed the kids deserved the Blue Ribbon,” she said. “They’re blueribbon students.”

In addition to having test scores in the top 10 percent of the nation for the last 10 years, the school offers three foreign languages and has been certified a Red-Ribbon School for its emphasis on promoting healthy, drug-free lifestyles.

The students “are genuinely caring and kind to each other. They value their education and they value each other,” Musiala said. Catholic schools around the archdiocese tend to have strong parent communities that encourage excellence.

“They are paying tuition and they hold us accountable,” she said.

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin School in Orland Hills, now in its eighth year, was the newest school to post a Blue Ribbon Award.

Its founding principal, Judy Schutter, applied for the award last year, before moving on to Mary Seat of Wisdom School in Park Ridge.

“I had a personal goal that I wanted the new school to be excellent and an outstanding Catholic school,” said Schutter. The Blue Ribbon provides validation of the school’s success, she said.

The school is sponsored by St. Elizabeth Seton, Orland Hills; St. Francis of Assisi, Orland Park; and St. Julie Billiart and St. Stephen Deacon and Martyr, Tinley Park.

Schutter said the school has a wonderful sense of community, with parents pitching in to provide programs that the school could not otherwise offer.

The school, which opened in 2000, has technology, with the ability to broadcast audio and video from its studio to each classroom, and teachers have worked to meet the needs of children of varying academic abilities.

New principal Mary Ianucilli said she has been impressed with the way the families and students worked together at the school.

Staff commitment

At St. Mary School in Buffalo Grove, principal Gary Campione, credited the commitment of his staff, most of whom have or have had their children enrolled in the school.

He also said the structure of a Catholic school, with preschool through eighth-grade, allows teachers to get to know students better and make sure they work up to their potential.

“If a child comes to us for 4- year-old preschool and they stay with us for 10 years of school, we have a very good idea of what their accomplishments should be,” he said.

“We have a good baseline, we have a trusting relationship with the children and their families. I don’t have any doubt that our children can succeed. They are working way above their intellectual talent level, because they work hard. We teach them time management, we teach them how to get along, how to ask for help, how to be imaginative in how to solve a problem.”

Getting national recognition for Catholic schools is important, Campione said, so potential families will understand the value they get for their tuition money.

“We are in a competitive market,” he said. “When we look at how much we do for how little we charge, compared to the tax money that goes to the public schools — if Catholic schools go away, there is no competition.”