A big thank you to our Men’s Club for the wonderful Mother’s Day breakfast last week. It was a joyful morning that filled the SJB cafeteria with chatter and fun. I hope we’ll be able to have more events like this. Thank you, also, to everyone who joined us for breakfast!

The school year is drawing to a close for many of us; next Tuesday brings graduation for our SSP School 8th graders. Our Board of Education has prepared a letter to our school community updating everyone regarding the school strategic plan which we rolled out last November. We’ll share that letter with the parish community next week. In the fall, we’ll publish a more comprehensive report on our progress, but I’d like to share with you some highlights today, because the SSP School is an important part of our parish strategy.

Our school strategic plan focused on two tasks: building enrollment and reducing our deficit. To that end, the plan includes tailored internal improvements, additional scholarships, new programming, expanded marketing, and a one-million-dollar financial commitment from our parish Finance Council earmarked for school sustainability.

Since the rollout of the plan, our staff and volunteers have been working on implementing the plan, and we’ve begun to see good results from their efforts.  At this point we’ve already increased enrollment for the coming school year, and there is good hope that we may see additional families enroll in the months between now and August. Thank you to all the families who have entrusted us with the education of their children! Here are some highlights on what has been accomplished.

• We’re launching a pilot summer program open to children from grades Pre-School 4 through Grade 3, seeking to attract more families with young children.
• We launched a variety of new scholarships. We targeted some scholarships to attract new families to our school, and we targeted other scholarships to support our existing school families in affording Catholic education.
• We have increased activity on our social media pages through the efforts of our Board of Education’s standing committee on marketing and Ryan Hanlon of Route 3 Films.
• Abby Richter of our marketing committee helped us launch a yard-sign project through which many of you have helped us raised the visibility of our school.
• Our Board of Education’s standing committee on education is developing plans to grow our extracurricular activities and school services through a parish volunteer system, and is looking for creative ways to retain our great faculty and attract talented new teachers as openings arise.
• The finance and facilities standing committees have begun brainstorming ways to increase sustainability and make the best use of our three campuses.

I’m grateful for all the good work that’s been done. If you’d like to contribute to our school’s success, here’s two ideas. First, help spread the news about our vibrant Catholic school. Excited parishioners are our best ambassadors; following our school's social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram) and sharing those posts is an easy, high-impact way to help. Second, consider sharing your time and talent with our students as a volunteer. Are you an engineer interested in leading a STEM project? Do you have a background in writing and wan to help start a student newspaper? Are you a champion of academics and willing to coach bright kids in an after school gifted club? Contact me or anyone on our Board of Ed; we would love to hear your idea. 

God bless you!