Principals: Hoping for a more ‘normal’ 2022-23

Archbishop Aymond greets Devona Nicholas, the new assistant principal of St. Katharine Drexel Prepratory School, following the July 28 Mass for school leaders.    Photo by Beth Donze | CLARION HERALD

Nick Marchese
Assistant Head of School
Archbishop Shaw High School

The last couple of years have been a trial to see what you can deal with on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. We’ve had to be adaptable to what the changes have been and what the mandates have been from the parish and the state. This year, we’re looking forward to having a successful start of the year without some of those restrictions and mandates. As a school leader, I’m definitely  looking forward to getting back to the normal monotony of the Augusts and the Septembers and just having a successful, exciting new school year with new kids. Our enrollment is up quite a bit, so we have some exciting things happening. Last year we implemented a new “household” system (Frassati, Savio, Acutis and de Sales). They are all named after either saints or blesseds who will become saints. Students from eighth through 12th grade all get to be together as colleagues in that (saint’s) household throughout their time. The bonding situations, the mentorship situations, the big brother, little brother situations are exponentially happening more and more each day around campus, in the lunchroom, in the hallways, in classrooms. I see nothing more positive than this.

Carmel Mire
Principal
St. Leo the Great School

I’m just hoping to have more consistency. It was hard going back after COVID last year. The children were still restless from being on virtual, and we had a lot of absenteeism and tardiness and just trying to get them back into the business of school. That’s my biggest concern – so we can achieve more than we did in the past. COVID is still a concern. My children are still wearing masks; my staff is still wearing masks to be safe. So we hope that that doesn’t have a great effect like it did in the past. I hope we can have a normal school year. It’s hard keeping the faith with the epidemic, but our mission mostly in Catholic school is to keep the faith and to have the faith in God that he wants his children educated, and that’s our purpose – to give them a Catholic education.

Sybil Skansi
Principal
Mary Queen of Peace School

We are counting on this year being normal. We’re excited to be back into classrooms that are engaging students. We can go on field trips, and we can do all of the things that we know were important to the learning process of our students. We learned so much about blended classrooms that are really engaging: That’s the teacher moving around the classroom; that’s the kids in groups; they’re learning and talking to their partners. And, all of a sudden, with COVID, we had to separate. We had to change our methods and kind of go back to the old way of teaching. So, we’re excited to go back to all the new things we’ve learned over the years that we know works for students and helps enhance the teaching-learning process. We can go back to doing whole-school Masses. I’m glad we can go back to the old ways – and new and improved ways.

Sister Michelle Geiger, F.M.A.
Principal
Academy of Our Lady

Last year, because things were basically back to normal, I think a lot of growth took place. When they were away (doing) virtual learning,  they didn’t have that interaction with each other that’s necessary for growth – how to deal with people, how to deal with problems, how to deal with disappointment. Last year was a key year because they were all back together, so this year, we just have to reinforce it – help our young people make the link with faith, because faith is what’s going to be with them for the rest of their life. If we can help them understand that Jesus is with them, then no matter what difficulty they face, they’ll always have someone by their side.

Vanessa Chavis
Principal
St. Benedict the Moor School

I’m looking forward to a peaceful beginning and the excitement of my kids, my faculty and staff. We weren’t able to have P.E. the last couple of years because of COVID, so we’re excited to be getting that back. I am impressed by the children’s spirit of resilience to adjust to everything that has gone on. They’re excited to come to school. One of things we were blessed to do during COVID was to have in-person school the whole school year because of our small class sizes.

Sheri Salvagio
Interim president
Cabrini High School

One of the things we’re looking forward to is resuming our full slate of Super Science Saturdays this year – we have a very strong science department. Through this program, our students have an opportunity to teach elementary school students about a variety of STEM-related topics in a fun way.

Gerald DeBose
Principal
St. Augustine High School

Our students have been absolutely great! There has been a lot of adversity they have had to overcome  (because of the pandemic) – personal issues, educational issues – but they stuck with it. That’s what we expect from St. Augustine High School graduates and students – whatever the obstacles are, we overcome them. We’re looking forward to resuming  our (off-campus) service to the community, which is such an important part of what we do at St. Augustine High.