Beginning our Fourth Year Together

Note: This is my opening year talk with parents on our "Back to School Night" on August 28, 2019

“Scholars, leaders, disciples of Jesus Christ. “

This is what we want our students to become--straight from our mission statement.   It is deliberately aspirational, something we all aim for. We’ll all fall short of it—we as teachers, you as parents, our students. Failure is part of growing up—so don’t get too upset if from time to time your kid does poorly on an assignment, or forgets something, or if a coach benches him for a time. It’s part of their maturation.  Our mission gives us a clear direction, and a clear measuring stick for our success. 

Parents are the primary educators—the role of the school is to support you in that role, "to extend the franchise of families,” I once heard it described. One of the natural sources of friction between teenagers and parents is they are trying to find their own voice, and to do so, they must step outside of the large shadow you cast, to distinguish your voice from theirs. But when they step outside of that shadow, they step into ours—and if the school and family are together, your values, your “voice” is being echoed by us, in the culture we create, in the values we are trying to instill them. There are a lot of other voices, clamoring for their attention! So it’s critical that our relationship is one of partnership.  Neither of us work “for” the other. We work “with” each other. 

In fact, in Catholic educational philosophy, the most important relationship in a school is NOT the teacher and student, but the teacher and parent. Our unity of purpose is a precondition for our right relationships with the kids. 

I think there are two take-aways from that: 

Let’s avoid 3rd person pronouns when speaking about each other. Not “they” or “them” but "us!" I say that not only to you as parents, but to our teachers. Let’s get to know each other by our first names, if possible.  Tonight is a good first step toward that as we meet each other. We—all of us!—are the Cardinals! 

Second, when our children come home and tell us horror stories about this or that teacher, or if they tell US horror stories about you, let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt. My former principal used to say, “We agree to believe only half of what teenagers tell us about you as parents, if you agree to only believe half of what they tell you about us.” The point is, there’s a difference between the lens through which a teen sees the world, and an adult. We who have a wider-angle lens are better able to contextualize. So if something comes up,  let’s agree to talk with each other, rather than harbor grudges or misperceptions. 

As we begin the year together, I have three additional requests of you:

1) Please act as our ambassadors—parents choose schools for their children by word of mouth. Speak well of us to your co—workers, your friends, your extended family. We want good kids here. We THINK that we’re going to have a wait list next year—we graduate a relatively small class of 58 seniors and expect a freshman class of 85 or so, which puts us at capacity. So urge them to apply early, in the October-November time frame. 

2) I ask that if you’re able, to be generous to the school. One of the things I am most proud of about our first three years—is that NO FAMILY has been turned away because of inability to afford our full tuition. Every family pays something, but because of your generosity to the Annual Fund, because of the support of the Guardian Angel fund, we’ve been able to supplement their tuition to bridge the difference. That depends on your continued generosity—please support Jenny Kopf, our Advancement and Admissions Director, and our Annual Fund initiatives this year. 

3) And for my last request, let me share a quick story:  The year before the school opened, I spent a lot of time in the three elementary schools, drumming up support for this new thing called St. Michael. I distinctly remember a conversation I had with a group of wonderful 8th grade girls from St. Patrick, and I asked them if they were excited to be coming to here as part of the inaugural freshman class. Of course they were, but they also said, endearingly, that they would miss St. Patrick. 

Those 8th graders are now seniors at St. Michael—they and their classmates will be the first 4-year graduates of the school on May 14, 2020-- the class of 2020! One of them, Hannah Gay, came to the office a few days before school started, and I mentioned to her that it seemed like just yesterday I was talking to her and her friends at St. Patrick—and here they are, seniors. She choked up with emotion and tears, and I teased her a little bit about it—but truth be told, I got choked up too. These last three years have been amazing. 

But they go by fast! Blink,  and your freshman will be a senior! A number of senior moms said to me at Cardinal Day a few weeks ago --that they remembered me saying that in this meeting, three years ago, and they said they were "feeling it."  These are special years. So this is my last request: Get involved. Join things, like our wonderful PTO or Booster Club. Help out with advancement initiatives. Assist as team parents for ball clubs. No parents have ever said, EVER!--as they prepare to say goodbye to their kids for college, "I wish I would have spent LESS time with my child, or LESS time involved in the life of his or her school!"

We’ll be a stronger school with your involvement, you’ll be a stronger family, and you won’t have any regrets at the end of this very short ride. 

Enjoy the evening! You're dismissed to go meet your child's teachers--don't linger!

All Things

Our latest video at St. Michael. My thanks to 4pmMedia for producing it.

"The Zeal to Spread the Sacred Fire"

Note: These are my reflections as part of our faculty prayer upon the completion of our first year as a high school.  

This is a portrait of Michael Portier, the first bishop of Mobile.  He is one of the three reasons Archbishop Rodi chose the name “Michael” in the creation of St. Michael Catholic High School. I am guessing the picture reflects Portier in his later years, as he is a bit heavier than was probable given the demands of his early life as bishop. 

He was born in 1795 in France, and came to the United States to become a priest in 1817. He was ordained at the age of 25, made “Vicar Apostolic” of Florida and Alabama at 32, and named bishop of Alabama and Florida at the age of 34. Our diocese began with him as our first bishop in 1829. To put that in perspective, Florida and Alabama are now 9 different dioceses. In the beginning he was the only priest of the entire 2 state area, and had three primary Catholic communities to care for in Mobile, Pensacola and St. Augustine. 

By the telling of Oscar H. Lipscomb, then Ph.D. candidate in history and later himself the archbishop of Mobile,  early travel back and forth between the three towns was quite difficult. The trip to St. Augustine required both sailing and hiking, a two week journey from Mobile. Mosquitos were a constant nemesis—Lipscomb recounts a letter in which Portier complains that “one could scarcely open one’s mouth without swallowing them” — and when he slept on the trail he had to wrap himself so tightly that only his nose protruded from his clothing, making it dreadfully uncomfortable with the heat and humidity, prompting Portier to write “the heat was bothersome, but of the two evils, one must choose the lesser.”  He relied heavily on the hospitality of non-Catholics during these trips, often lodging in their homes on the trail. Long before the anti-Catholicism of the Know-Nothings and the KKK in the middle 1800’s, Portier was of an ecumenical mindset: "Respecting sincerity of belief wherever he found it,” Lipscomb writes,  “he did not hesitate to praise the outstanding qualities that faiths other than his own engendered in his hardy hosts.”  (The Administration of Michael Portier, Oscar H. Lipscomb, 1963)

Early during his tenure, Portier went back to France to recruit priests to help him in his work, and brought back five, the most famous of whom was Fr. Loras, whom Portier appointed as the first president of Spring Hill College in 1830 and who later became bishop of Dubuque, Iowa.  Times were tough --there was very little money.  Yellow fever epidemics were common. In fact, the site for Spring Hill College was chosen because of its elevation, in hope to avoid the mosquito driven sicknesses so common in marshy, coastal waters. Bishop Portier worked hard. When he started Spring Hill College, a newspaper reported that “the good bishop, with axe in hand, was always in the lead”. 

He was blessed with good health during most of his ministry.  When he was made bishop, 
reflecting on his unworthiness to be called “successor to the apostles,” he  quipped that his “health was his only apostolic quality.” He lived simply in a two room wooden house in Mobile, and the first “cathedral” was a small church that was 20 feet wide and 50 feet deep. But through his faith, hard work and the blessings of grace, the Church in this area slowly grew, and in 1837 he commissioned the building a new Cathedral, which was finished in 1850 and named “Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.” That basic Cathedral, with some improvements, still exists today.  Bishop Portier lived until he was 63, dying in 1859. He was bishop of Mobile for thirty years, 1829-1859.

As the first principal of the high school named in his honor, I was particularly moved by his pledge to God during his ordination. Prostrate on the floor as part of the ceremony, Portier recounts that “I made a promise to God of strict fidelity, of devotion to his glory until death, and of constant zeal to spread everywhere the sacred fire. “

The notion of our faith as a “sacred fire,” I think, is a very compelling one. In Scripture, fire has always been an indication of God’s mighty, intimate presence—the burning bush of Moses, the pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the Red Sea, the tongues of fire that came upon the apostles at Pentecost. And I think it’s a very good image for us, too, in understanding the work we are doing at St. Michael. We are continuing the work of Bishop Poitier, continuing the work of the apostles and our Church, spreading the sacred fire. We are making God present and active in the life of our students and our families. 

So let FIRE be our focus of this morning's prayer service—that this fire, first of all, burns deeply in us, so that we may share this fire authentically and zealously with our students. May God continue to bless St. Michael Catholic High School as we begin deliberations for our second year. And may it --may He through us--ignite a wildfire throughout all of Baldwin County!