As promised, our Board of Education this weekend releases its report on the progress of our school strategic plan. The news is good. First, we are making progress on bending the enrollment curve in the right direction. This year was better than recent years have been. Second, we have made progress towards long-term financial stability for our school and parish operations. Third, we have Board of Education committees working on Marketing, Facilities, Education and Finance. While there is still plenty of work to do, we have had a good beginning and we have made progress.
Let me conclude with two tidbits that excite me. Tidbit number one: thanks to the good work of many volunteers and leaders at our Fish Fry and our Golf Tournament, we’ll be able to give more help through Monsignor Vince Bommarito Scholarships than we did last year. Tidbit number two: we are exploring an expansion of our SSP school campus, turning our current SSP office into additional education space. The idea is to use the extra space for high impact, cost effective education opportunities like a STEM lab or a larger preschool.
Your thoughts and questions are welcome; consider bringing them to me or to anyone on our Board of Education. Cathy Drury serves as our new president, Michael Dauphin continues as our vice-president, and Dan Richter is our new secretary. Many thanks to our outgoing president, Maria Howe, who did so much to make the first year of our strategic plan successful! I hope you’ll read the full report for all the details, because SSP school is an important part of our parish strategy: “As a united parish with three churches and a school, welcome and love newcomers with transformative weekend worship, and then lead young, old, and in between to take their next step as disciples of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church.”